


The Time Between Moments

by themunchking



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Explicit Sexual Content, Historical References, Like the movie Jumper but with time, M/M, Thievery, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-06-25 00:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19734325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themunchking/pseuds/themunchking
Summary: There is one thing Lucas knows for certain—despite every jump in time, every new foreign place and period, all the times he’s criss-crossed his own life. Time changes everything.And then he meets Jungwoo.





	The Time Between Moments

_“I met a traveler from an antique land”  
_ _Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley_

If there was one thing every time traveler knew, it was that to travel in time was to flirt with a force as powerful as the ocean. All things, past and present, stood on its shore and one day time would smooth away the evidence. Time was patient, time was unrelenting. And if you weren’t careful, you could get caught up in its current as easy as anything else.

-

**Seoul, South Korea. 2000.**

It wasn’t there. The necklace wasn’t there.

Lucas closed his eyes, rolled his neck around once, and breathed in slowly. He didn’t say it out loud, but the _fuuuuuuck_ rang through his head like a church bell. 

It wasn’t just that the necklace itself wasn’t there, it was that the display case for it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the festival pamphlet, either, though a thousand other things were. Instead, Lucas was standing in an empty room. Certainly there was supposed to be _something_ in there, but it was like the truth of the room was obscured. Other attendees, with their gowns and champagne flutes, passed through the room as though nothing was wrong. It was only Lucas that knew it, only he who could feel it. 

But then again, he was also the only time traveler in attendance. 

Lucas turned on his heel and stalked out of the gallery into the side hallway near the bathrooms. From the inside pocket of his suit jacket he pulled out a crumpled pamphlet nearly identical to the one he had picked up at the gallery upon arrival, only with one noticeable difference. In the pamphlet he’d brought, the necklace was there. Item #302. A small, perfectly square piece of pale green Celadon dipped in Japanese silver that had once been a wedding gift to some courtesan. Unique in that Korean Celadon, notoriously difficult to perfect, most often came in the form of pottery, not jewelry. Not the most spectacular thing Lucas had ever been sent after, but it was the object of desire for the person who hired Lucas to come and get it before it fell into the hands of a mystery buyer, never to appear in public again. People collected all sorts of thing—he was in no position to judge. 

It wasn’t as if someone had jumped in front of him and gotten to the necklace first. Sometimes that happened—one buyer put out bids to two travelers and the one who got there first won the prize. No, the necklace had never been there. According to _his_ pamphlet, the one he brought, it had been there once, but somewhere time and place had become knotted, confused. 

It meant one thing: Lucas had stumbled onto a paradox. 

Still in the hallway, Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned for real this time. Fuck, he needed a cigarette. 

He strode through the gallery, weaving in between the rich and well connected. It was opening night of the art festival, and Seoul’s society crowd was out looking to be seen. Lucas’ all-black outfit, though striking, because Lucas did nothing in halves, was supposed to be inconspicuous. However, people looked at him anyways. Maybe when he got home he would dye his hair back to black—that is, if he survived Kun’s beratements. 

With no reason to stay Lucas picked up his coat and small backpack from the attendant and continued out into the chilly Seoul air. The sun was just beginning to dip below the skyline and it had caused a sharp drop in temperature, but the light was golden and warm, and Lucas was thinking that he would do some small jumps and find a good place to take a photograph. Probably of the Han. He’d been to Seoul once before, in the 1960s, when it was barely recognizable compared to the shiny, modern metropolis it turned into post-war. He remembered the putrid smell of the river and the pieced-together homes that chased it through the city that had been erased from the landscape, the unsavory past razed to make way for the new. Life had been hard and grueling here once, as it had been everywhere, but time had done its part in erasing some of that pain and memory. 

Outside Lucas found his way to a small park across the street from the gallery—far enough away for some privacy but close enough to pick out some conversations. There were carcasses of freshly smoked cigarettes but no people to be seen. The cheap lighter he’d picked up at a drugstore back home flicked feebly once, twice, before completely giving out on him. Not only would he not be getting paid, but he couldn’t even smoke a goddamn cigarette. His eyes travelled the streets for the neon glow of a convenience store, but besides for the gallery the street was quiet and pedestrian. He was about to give up and and jump the hell out of there when a gentle hand tapped him on the shoulder.

Lucas jumped, and made an embarrassing squeal while doing so. Had he really not noticed another person in the park with him? 

A pair of dark eyes blinked back.

Slow on the uptake, it took an awkward pause for Lucas to realize the dark eyes belonged to a man, a very pretty man, and that said man was holding out a lighter for him to use. 

“Thanks,” Lucas said, only barely stumbling over the Korean. Kun would be so proud. The man didn’t say anything in response but smiled gently. He had adorable cheeks, Lucas thought, which did not even strike him as a strange thing to think. Lucas liked his lighter, too, a heavy, shiny metal that reminded Lucas fondly of one he’d once had but lost somewhere along the way. 

Unlike his own, this lighter sprung to life immediately. Lucas took a long, relieved drag and handed the lighter back to the man. Only as he did, the light caught a glimmer of silver on the man’s chest and it drew Lucas’ gaze to it. 

There, against the man’s tan turtleneck, was the necklace. 

Up close Lucas could see the photographs in the gallery pamphlet did it no justice. The necklace was a delicate, simple thing—an ode to a singular understanding of beauty as the pure expression of taste and craftsmanship. Against the man’s chest it had an otherworldly, incandescent quality to it. 

Although it would have been impossible for the stranger not to notice how blatantly Lucas was staring at him, he graciously didn’t say anything about it. Neither did he comment on how Lucas’ hand was still outstretched and gripping the lighter so that their hands were locked into a mockery of a handshake for a solid minute. 

“Uh, sorry,” Lucas said, recovering. He shook his head a bit, trying to get his thoughts to align into coherent sentences. “My name is Lucas. I uh, like your necklace.” 

The man smiled kindly back. In the junction between that smile and speaking, however, Lucas thought he could see hurt flash in those dark eyes. “I know,” he said. It was unclear whether he meant he already knew who Lucas was or if he knew he liked the necklace. Lucas _had_ just been staring at it. Either way, it was an odd thing to say. “I’m Jungwoo. I like your watch.” 

Lucas wore a heavy silver watch on his left wrist. Engraved on the underside in Chinese characters it read: _time changes everything_ in delicate characters. It was given to him by his father, back when he was a naive boy and not a man, and when he lived his life proudly with the name his parents gave to him on his back. Before he cast that name to the side. The inscription was apodictic—and Lucas observed it every day, every time he took a jump into the stream of time. Time changes everything. 

His thoughts were everywhere. He took another drag of his cigarette. 

Beyond what could be considered a coincidence, the necklace showed no trace of every being inside but instead was outside, on the pretty neck of a random person—Jungwoo. Maybe if Lucas thought about it for long enough he could puzzle out what was going on, but what stood out to him the most was that he had a second chance and could go home with a win after all. Just had to put on the charm.

“And what are you doing here, Jungwoo?” Lucas said, putting on the bright grin that said he was a kind, trustworthy person. 

“Oh, what any of us are here to do, look at art and all that,” Jungwoo said. As he said it, his eyes trailed down—slowly, deliberately—the line of Lucas’ body. 

“I don’t think most people inside are there to look at art,” Lucas replied wryly. 

“How could they be when the art is out here?” Jungwoo said with a false innocent lilt to his tone. To hear such an outrageous and cliched line come out of such an sweet face caused Lucas to burst out in laughter. Jungwoo laughed along with him, as if it were his goal from the beginning just to hear the sound of Lucas’ surprise. 

“It’s high praise to be compared to art,” Lucas said. 

“But your strike me as someone who is confident in himself. I’m not wrong, am I?” 

“No,” Lucas admitted. He dropped his cigarette and snuffed it out under the heel of his perfectly shined shoe. He used the movement to subtly inch closer to Jungwoo. “But you’re not one to talk, I think.” 

Jungwoo hummed. “I have my moments. I just know what interests me.” Jungwoo took a small, graceful step forward, then another, so that they were only a small length apart. Lucas grinned.

“Tell me then. I like to hear about myself.” 

“I saw you inside, first. You’re hard to miss, but I think you know that. Then your eyes. I found them quite striking.” 

The way Jungwoo spoke was addicting. It was soft, easy to mistake with shy, but he spoke with a deliberate purpose. He looked right at Lucas when he spoke, as if he were the only thing worthy of his attention at that moment, the only interesting thing in the world. 

“Anything else?” Lucas smirked. It was clear Jungwoo was staring at his lips. Lucas reached out into the gap between them to place his hand carefully under the lapel on Jungwoo’s coat. It landed right next to the delicate chain of the necklace. The other man responded in turn by stepping directly into Lucas’ space, so that Lucas could comfortably put his other hand on his hip, inside his coat. 

“Your hands,” Jungwoo said slowly. Jungwoo’s own hands came up to rest softly on Lucas’ chest. Their faces were close together now, their warm breath mingling together in the cold air. Jungwoo smelled lovely, like chamomile. “Your lips. How they look better smiling.” 

Lucas had thought at first he could charm his way close enough to tug the necklace off and make a break for it, but those thoughts had turned into speculation of if Jungwoo lived close by, if he would take Lucas with him, he was obviously interested, just kiss him fool—

“Xuxi,” Jungwoo whispered. 

The force of the name caught Lucas right in the chest. It left him breathless, reeling; he was so disoriented that for a moment he thought he had jumped on accident, which he hadn’t done since he was kid. But no one had called him that name _since_ he was a kid. It brought back visceral memories of wandering the aisles of the fish market, the dim sum place they visited on weekends, the lullabies his mom sang as he drifted off to sleep. It _hurt_ to hear it. But it also felt unbelievably good. 

Lucas gripped Jungwoo’s shoulder tightly. “Where did you hear that name?” he demanded. Jungwoo made an aborted movement to lift his arm. 

“You did,” he said quietly. And—oh. “We’ve met before. But this is the first time for you.” 

“Are you...” Lucas trailed off. With their eyes connected, Jungwoo brought his hands up to cover Lucas’ on his shoulders. Gripping them tightly, they jumped. 

Riding along with Jungwoo’s jump was nothing like making his own. It had none of the telltale buildup in his base of his abdomen or the feeling of being pulled somewhere by his fingertips. It was a sudden _there_ and now _here_ that left him feeling a little dizzy, a little like he wanted to puke. Not that he was about to puke in front of Jungwoo. 

They’d landed on the observation deck of one of the highest buildings in Seoul. They’d gone back in time, too, by just a little. It looked like Lucas would be getting his perfect golden-hour shot after all. 

“You’re first ride along?” Jungwoo asked, teasing. He’d notice Lucas going rather green. Embarrassment and a sudden shyness caught up to Lucas quickly. 

“No, uh, it’s just been a while.” He scratched the back of his head. Averted his eyes. Jungwoo disarmed him. travelers were solitary, closed-off creatures for the most part. Connections to other travelers grew out like spindly constellations, not webs. Lucas knew Kun and Ten, and Ten knew Johnny, who probably knew some other people. But he’d never actually met Johnny in person, just seen his hickies on Ten’s neck. But now there was Jungwoo, so inviting and open. 

Or maybe not so open.

“How did we meet?” Lucas asked. Instead of dodging the question Jungwoo completely ignored it; he made a noncommittal hum and spun on his heels to lean out over the rail of the observation deck. Really, this shouldn’t have been surprising. At the moment their timelines were divergent, not synced, and too many questions could have unfortunate and unintended side effects. Even the most novice, fool-hearted travelers knew it was bad news to mess with your own timeline. So Lucas let the question float away with the breeze for the time being.

Lucas pulled his low profile camera from the confines of his backpack. He stood next to Jungwoo and framed his shot carefully, so that he was capturing the same sight that he and Jungwoo shared together. The tower looked out to where the city spread out, nestled between Ingwansan and Bugaksan Mountain. As if through the mechanical reproduction of the moment he could capture not just what is eyes saw, but the breeze on his face and the aroma on the air. He didn’t think he would ever forget this day, not with the impression Jungwoo was making, but what he feared was forgetting that sight, that one day all the places he had been would just bleed into each other like one place was no more special than the last. It wasn’t true. Each place had its own things to offer, its characteristics worth cherishing for that fleeting speck in time. 

“Well?” Jungwoo asked. His chin was settled on the railing over criss-cross of his folded arms. “Aren’t you going to take a photo of me too?” 

So Lucas did. Maybe he had never taken a photograph of something so lovely. 

There were a thousands questions Lucas wanted to ask—who are you really, where (and when) are you from, what are _we_ —but more than any of those burning questions Lucas wanted to get back to where Jungwoo’s breath ghosted his lips. Jungwoo opened his body towards him and Lucas saw his chance; he moved in with two large steps, but instead of letting him in Jungwoo stopped him with one hand grasping his. Jungwoo stroked across his knuckles with his thumb in a gesture so terribly gentle. 

“I’ll see you soon, Xuxi.” Jungwoo dropped his hand, and then he was gone. 

Lucas stood there quietly for thirty seconds, then forty, a minute. And then, because no one was around to see him, he fisted his hair with both fists and screamed. 

-

**Hong Kong. 2006.**

It was without conscious thought that his feet took him down the familiar brick-lined residential streets. An occasional red taxi cab crawled by, looking for anyone looking particularly in a rush, or better, lost. Lucas couldn’t have been lost even if he were blindfolded. In 2006 he knew every turn, alleys, and hill in the neighborhood. No businesses had yet changed hands, no new high-rises had gone up over an old British home. One day it would surely be unrecognizable, but in the private world of his thoughts that day would never come. Because in Hong Kong, the past had no value. Only what was new was prosperous, and what was prosperous was good. 

For certain he looked out of place in his suit and wool jacket, but he’d come straight to humid Hong Kong from winter in Seoul. The visit couldn’t wait. In Jungwoo’s wake he felt unmoored, and he needed something to center him again. Even if that thing wasn’t good for him. 

Clearly, Lucas didn’t have the best self-care strategies. First cigarettes, then stalking his past self. 

Ahead on the sidewalk walked a couple with a young child between them. Each parent held their child’s hands. In just a moment they could swing the little boy up into the air. Like Lucas himself, they knew the streets well. It figured, because it was that couple that taught them to Lucas. Behind them, Lucas raised his camera and framed his family carefully in his lense. Not everything could be ingrained in his mind like the streets. 

Lucas knew their agenda for the day. The park and the pond to feed bread to the ducks, then the tram up to the peak where a picnic was in order. Then they’d take the long way back home just for the simple pleasure of it, but little seven-year-old Yukei would get tired halfway through and his father would carry him on his back. Outside of their doorstep they would chat with their elderly neighbors playing _Go_ while the light was still good, and Yukei would be set down so he could play with a little teacup poodle. His mother would make dinner and sing, his dad would study the newspaper and read the interesting parts aloud, and Yukei would work on his coloring books. They would eat their steamed fish and Yukei would pretend to eat his vegetables. When the day was well and truly over his mother and father would tuck him into bed, and at Yukei’s insistence pull out one of their large photo albums and tell him a story about one of the times and places they had been. 

Out all of the days in human history, Lucas had lived this one the most. 

He didn’t even need to watch them for the whole day. Sometimes it was enough to just know that they were there and happy. He knew the day by heart, anyways (at 12:32 they left the duck pond and walked to the tram station. They ran to catch it but missed just narrowly and had to wait for another. Yukei walked around on his father’s feet and pretended they were stilts. Every second added exponential meanings). 

Visiting his own past was beyond idiotic. And yet Lucas was driven to do so whenever the loneliness of his everyday life felt unbearable. It was the topic of Kun’s most frequent lectures ever since he’d let it slip that he frequented his own childhood. But even Kun didn’t know the extent to which he’d done so. And considering the amount of times Lucas had visited, each time he returned he had to worry about dodging _himself_ as well. Once or twice he thought he’d seen a glimpse of himself in the corner of his vision. But what Kun didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and anyways, he said the same thing every time: “It’s impossible to live without forgetting. You can’t be happy without being able to forget some of the past.” It sounded smart, but Lucas knew Kun was really just paraphrasing Nietzsche. 

Kun was tight-lipped on his own personal life, but Lucas knew he had a family living in mainland China. The fact that they were there and alive meant they weren’t in jeopardy of being forgotten. Lucas didn’t have that luxury. 

When the young Yukei and his parents turned left through the gates of the park Lucas kept walking past until he was far away enough to duck into an alley. From there he jumped to a familiar spot on Victoria Peak. It was where his family would have their picnic later, in a few hours, with a beautiful view of the city and bay below. Lucas checked his watch—all he needed to do was keep track of the time and everything would be fine. 

Heh, last words if Lucas had ever heard any. 

He pushed his wool coat off his shoulders and settled onto the grass. His slacks would probably be ruined by the grass and mud, and he wouldn’t be getting paid because of his failure to retrieve the necklace. Whatever; if need be he could steal some gold off an 18th century Duchess. It was a beautiful, warm day in the Hong Kong spring, before the heavy humidity of the summer set in. As he sat a gentle breeze began to pick up, and Lucas’ thoughts wandered to Jungwoo and the way his hair moved across his forehead with the wind. 

They would meet again, that was for certain. The only question was when, and how many more times. The Lucas of the future trusted him enough to tell him about the name Xuxi, and that fact alone meant Jungwoo was worth thinking about more. He could have tried and followed Jungwoo’s breadcrumbs in Seoul, but it was clear that the other meant his words as a “goodbye for now.” Besides which, unless he’d wanted Lucas to follow Jungwoo would have certainly tried to cover the the breadcrumbs his jumping left in the flow of time by bouncing around like a hacker veiling their IP address. 

So Lucas just had to wait. Unfortunately, waiting was not one of his strong suits. 

Lucas enjoyed his time outside until the time where his family would be well on their way up the tram. By that point he’d sweated through the back of his pressed shirt and wedged dirt underneath his fingernails that he would need to painstakingly clean when he got home. Perhaps on the way he would stop by the frantic stalls of the _dai pai dong_ and pick up something to eat that was familiar and comforting on his tongue. 

Before he left, he took another photo. The same day he’d known so many times, but transformed, captured out of context, by his lense.

The day had given him three more pieces of memory to add to his collection.

-

**Singapore. 2019.**

Lucas landed directly onto his apartment balcony, where he was able to slip off his muddy shoes before entering his apartment. He went through his normal return checklist—camera on the desk, worn clothes in the hamper, snatch banana off the counter. This left him in the somewhat ridiculous state of eating a banana in nothing but his underwear and watch, but hey, he lived alone. 

It was a small apartment but it suited him well. The kitchen (which Lucas hardly used), dining area, and living area were all open concept. There was a decent sized bedroom with a view, and most importantly, plenty of closet space to store whatever outfit Lucas needed to wear for a location. If anyone saw the clothes he had they would be think he was a period actor. There was also the spare bedroom he used as a darkroom. The most important part of the apartment, however, was an L-shaped desk along the wall next to the balcony door. On the wall above the desk Lucas pinned his favorite photographs, a set ranging from moments of war, to heroism, to sites long lost in the tides of time. Though the area of the desk itself was large, only a small portion of it was cleared so Lucas could actually work. In fact, his whole apartment was set up that way. Over time he’d developed a collecting habit. He liked photography books, of course, but he’d also managed to bring home his own small museum over time. 

He checked his watch. The time it kept was consistent with his personal timeline, meaning that as long as it was strapped to his wrist it was exempt from his travelling antics. It told him he’d spent a total of eight hours in Seoul and Hong Kong. And because of that, when he landed on his balcony he made it so eight hours had passed in Singapore since he’d first left. Although his body allowed him to jump, it also wasn’t immune to a circadian rhythm that demanded he sleep at some point. 

It was almost like going on a business trip. If your business was niche crime that went against all known laws of science. 

Lucas would have loved nothing more than to just shower and curl up in his bed for twelve hours, then work on developing his photos. But first, he had to call Kun. 

It probably wasn’t going to be pretty. Lucas fished around his apartment for his cell phone—useless when travelling—which had somehow managed to get crushed between the couch cushions. He navigated to Kun’s number quickly, as it was one of the only contacts he had at all, and hit the _call_ button before he could think too hard about it. 

Kun picked up on the first ring.

 _“Hello Lucas,”_ Kun said warmly. Lucas wouldn’t consider the two of them friends, but he had to admit Kun was one of the most kind, cordial people he’d ever met. _“You can come by now for the drop-off.”_

“Uhhhhhhhh,” Lucas droned. “About that. I don’t have it.” The other line was silent. The only other time Lucas had failed to retrieve an object was when he’d gotten shot at by a rival traveler. No payout was worth explaining to a doctor how he’d managed to get shot by a musket. 

_“What happened?”_ Kun asked. If it were possible to sound both concerned and pissed at the same time, Kun pulled it off.

“It wasn’t there man!” Lucas cried. “It was a paradox! It was in the pamphlet you provided but when I got there—poof! Nothing! No sign of it at all.” So what, Kun didn’t need to know that the necklace _had_ been there, just on the neck of someone Lucas almost kissed in a park. And on top of a building. 

Kun sighed on the other side of the line. He spoke like the headache from the whole mess had already set in. _“This isn’t going to go over well with the buyer. It’s good they’re not local, or our reputation would be lowered.”_

In Singapore, there were plenty of people with money looking to buy artifacts from the past. Lucas retrieved everything from paintings, lost family heirlooms, and treasures that were supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean in a shipwreck. The strength of the market was why he set up base there in the first place, along with several other travelers. Kun, a traveler himself, managed the network of buyers for Lucas, along with Ten, Johnny, and likely several more travelers. He was also Lucas’ unofficial big brother who convinced him to take measures he never would have on his own, like packing an emergency bag in case he had to abandon his apartment on short notice. 

It was, of course, technically illegal to use time travelling abilities to acquire items that had not entered into your hands through conventional—legal—methods. It was the first rule on the long, arduous list of standards the Bureau of Time Affairs laid out and that every traveler was supposed to follow, or else risk prosecution by some independent, shadowy committee. The punishments were all supposed to be very bad and blah blah freedom to jump revoked. By death maybe? It wasn’t like Lucas paid much attention to the standards. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even read them all.

The BTA was a concern, of course, but just a distant one. They had trouble getting people to work for them, for one, because travelling in time was cool and following the rules was not. Usually it was kids who hadn’t realized the rules of society were for other people, the ones who had to go about their lives in linear fashion. Occasionally Lucas heard from Ten that the BTA had conducted a raid on some small enterprise but that they’d only caught one or two people. The rest had scattered to the wind, and as long as they could put enough jumps between them and the BTA they would be fine. 

So Lucas wasn’t terribly concerned about the BTA, at least not in the immediate sense. It was one of the things Kun concerned himself with so Lucas didn’t have to worry. Kun was a man concerned with details, while Lucas was more... big picture. 

“There was nothing I could do,” Lucas said. It wasn’t _entirely_ a lie. They said their goodbyes, Kun promising to get back to him quickly with another job. People were greedy for the past, as if objects that bore witness to history somehow made the people who possessed them analogous to the dead. There was always another job. 

A small slip of colorful paper by his front door caught Lucas’ eye. He padded over and picked it up, discovering that it was a note from his neighbor across the hall.

 _Lucas,_ the note read. _Could you water my plants for a day tomorrow? Come by when you get home and let me know. Thnx, Xiaojun_. 

In a few minutes Lucas was dressed in soft sweatpants and a t-shirt and made the short journey to the other side of the hallway. He didn’t particularly have friends, but Xiaojun was a welcome friendly face. The young man was soft spoken but cheerful, and often invited Lucas to casual hang-out sessions that never felt like an obligation. Maybe they could have been friends for real if Lucas wasn’t constantly hiding the fact that he was a time traveler with an incredibly odd schedule from him. Xiaojun thought he was a bartender or something else that involved working strange hours. Because Lucas always landed on his balcony after returning from a trip, it was nearly impossible for the other man the keep track of him. 

Xiaojun welcomed him in, and Lucas took advantage of the other’s fully stocked cabinets. In return he received the spare key and the instructions for the plants, even though Lucas had done this favor for Xiaojun several times in the past. Lucas stuck around for a bit, listening to an album from an artist they both liked, and talking about mundane, everyday things that Lucas had to mostly make up. There was something comforting in performing the motions of a normal life, but from experience, Lucas knew he would tire of it after a few days. He excused himself when his eyelids began to weigh heavy and made the return journey to his own apartment. 

After a blissful shower Lucas practically threw himself into bed, a place he wouldn’t leave for almost a day later. It wasn’t just the physical exertion of jumping, but the emotional whirlwind he’d been through. Being unconscious for several hours was just what he needed. 

He woke sometime in the middle of the afternoon the next day. His brain was still hazy and his eyes were crusted from sleep, but from that fog for a moment he swore he could hear a soft laugh with the tone of twinkling bells and smell the sweet aroma of chamomile. 

-

**Paris. 1929.**

A week had passed since Lucas met Jungwoo in Seoul. There had been no jobs from Kun, though Lucas had taken several recreational trips, chasing the scent of chamomile around the world. He couldn’t decide if it really was Jungwoo leaving him breadcrumbs or Lucas was just losing his mind. It hadn’t stopped him from making trips to the poppy fields of Afghanistan or the shores of Cuba. 

When a job did come, it took him to Paris in the year 1929. It was a city entrenched in the modern collective memory through literature, film, and art. The place of dreams and fantasies, and where the lost and confused of the world could commiserate with other lost souls. Needless to say it was a hot spot for time travelers, to the point where it was hard to say how many of history’s famous figures were travelers themselves. It did smell a bit rank, but you got used to it after a while. 

Paris was one of Lucas’ favorite cities on earth, not least because he’d seen it through the lense of his favorite photographers and his own eyes at a thousand different angles. Atget’s romantic ode to old Paris to Bresson’s surrealism. It was one of those peculiar places where every inch was so layered in history and memory that it would be impossible to unravel it all. 

This time around, Lucas had a specific mark on top of an object. Taeyong Lee was a bohemian sort, the kind of easy going, generous, and philosophical character that Lucas had trouble making sense of. He’d shown up on Taeyong’s doorstep under the guise of being a photographer new to the city with a perfectly forged letter of introduction, because _“us transplants from the East have to stick together, yes?”_

So Lucas was welcomed into the Lee apartment, which like many homes in Paris during the time, acted as a revolving door for his circle of artists and thinkers. Lucas was there to find an original manuscript, a task he originally thought would be cut and dry, but of course nothing ever was. Taeyong’s house was a prime example of a cabinet of curiosity in large scale. Every surface, drawer, and a considerable swaths of the floor were covered in bits and bobs of every variety. Books lived in the kitchen, paints and emulsions in the washroom in the hall. At the dining table meals had to contend with plasters of Greek sculptures that Taeyong said “stimulated the senses” while one was eating. 

Locating one lonely manuscript was going to take some work on Lucas’ part. 

Besides the chaos of the home, Lucas had to additionally contend with the chaotic social scene he’d managed to get swept up in while being under Lee’s wing. The man had a thousand friends, many of whom weren’t his friends at all, but near strangers whose names Taeyong always managed to remember after one drunken meeting as they stumbled home along the Seine. And Lucas wasn’t in a position to refuse. It was tantalizing, too, to see a Paris he’d so frequently seen static come to life before his own eyes. Especially not when he had all the time in the world at his disposal with the snap of his fingers. 

On good days, Taeyong locked himself in his study and Lucas was free to poke around the apartment for the manuscript. But the other days were also good, when Lucas let himself fall in the easy rhythm of letting Taeyong and company drag him about Paris. These were the days he took pleasure in photographing the scenes and people, even if he had to do it to keep up with his cover story. They smoked cigarettes and talked the day away at Cafe Brasserie and spent many a night there too, as long as Taeyong wasn’t feeling adventurous and itching to go off to the gentleman’s club to dance with men in lipstick. 

All told, Lucas spent two and a half weeks in Paris without making much progress. It was the kind of thing that happened to all travelers at one point or another—they landed in a place too magical to leave. But if there was one thing certain about Lucas’ kind, it was that they always left in the end. The desire to jump, felt as a tingle in the tips of his fingers, always came calling. 

Of course, it was just as Lucas was getting comfortable that Jungwoo appeared. 

He waltzed into Cafe Brasserie one day, completely unannounced. With him came chamomile, and it had been just long enough that Lucas had stopped turning his head every time he smelled it on the wind. Taeyong noticed him first, and evidently it was an exciting enough occasion to stub out his cigarette and leap up to pull Jungwoo into a hug. 

“Jacques!” Taeyong exclaimed. “You must meet a recent, good friend of mine, also from away, as is everyone is Paris these days. Lucas, meet my dear friend Jacques.” 

Lucas starred at Jungwoo dumbly, his mouth hanging open. The other man looked different from how he’d been in Seoul, just a month ago for Lucas. His hair was dark, not the chestnut brown is had been, and he carried the weight of someone older, wider on his shoulders. Lucas was just as entranced. 

Jungwoo looked down on him with such terrible gentleness. 

He slid down to sit in the booth next to Lucas, whose body moved on its own accord to accommodate. Jungwoo pulled from his trouser pocket the same lighter from Seoul, and with a cigarette between his lips turned to Lucas. Jungwoo’s fingers lingered on his as he passed Lucas the lighter, who fulfilled the other’s silent request to light his cigarette. He only broke eye contact when he turned away from Lucas to blow his first exhale of smoke up into the air. 

Lucas glanced at Taeyong, to see if he’d noticed the thick atmosphere and Lucas’ uncharacteristically speechless behavior, but during the short exchange he’d become distracted by the shape of the chair’s shadow on the sidewalk outside and studying it keenly. 

Jungwoo engaged them both in polite conversation. He asked Lucas about his photography, which Lucas answered with the reflective ease of someone who’d memorized a life instead of lived it. The whole timed Lucas’ gaze stayed trained on him.

“Tell me Taeyong, what was that essay you were working on, the one about memory?” Jungwoo asked. That was enough to shock Lucas out of his work cataloguing of every freckle and dimple of Jungwoo’s perfect face. He was talking about the manuscript Lucas was supposed to be looking for. 

“Well, now that you mention it,” Taeyong said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I finished it and sent off a copy to my publisher, who hated it, but still wants to publish it out of some masochistic hatred for himself.” 

“And I’m sure you then tucked the original into the silver drawer,” Jungwoo laughed. As he did so, one hand gently stroked the inseam of Lucas’ trousers, by his knee. “Really, you must hire a girl to look after the place for you. Do some cataloging.” 

“Perhaps a pretty boy,” Taeyong said, laughing the suggestion off, which he did everytime someone suggested he clean his apartment. Apparently the mess fueled his inner mind, or something to that effect. 

“Oh I must be going,” Taeyong said, glancing at his watch. For a person so materially disorganized, Taeyong was rarely late to anything. “I hope you don’t mind me leaving you two here? Fear not Lucas, Jacques is great company.” 

“Of course not,” Lucas said, finally finding his voice. “I’ll see you for dinner. We’ll call on the others and go to the cafe after.” 

Jungwoo and Lucas watched in silence as Taeyong left. Lucas was very aware that Jungwoo’s hand was still on his thigh. 

“You’re here,” Lucas breathed, like once he acknowledged it Jungwoo would be gone again. Jungwoo didn’t leave, though, only smiled. 

“I am. It’s nice to see you, Xuxi,” he said, not in French, or Korean, but in Cantonese. If it weren’t generally frowned upon in polite early 20th century French society, Lucas would have kissed him right there in the middle of the cafe. 

“Are you BTA?” Lucas blurted. Immediately after the words came out of his mouth he cringed and rubbed a hand over his face. Was is possible to say a worse thing? But somehow, and this didn’t help Lucas’ sneaking suspicion he was an angel, Jungwoo didn’t seem to mind that Lucas had essentially just asked if he was a cop. Instead Jungwoo smiled, because he smiled at everything Lucas did or said, and tightened his grip on Lucas’ thigh. “Because I—” _feel like you’re everywhere_ _I go_. At least he managed not to say that part. 

“No,” Jungwoo said. “Trust me, I have plenty of reasons to stay far away from the BTA. Do you want to walk? It’s lovely today.” 

So they left Cafe Brasserie and headed southwest towards the Seine. They walked close together, close enough so their shoulders rubbed and every so often the back of their hands brushed against each other. Along the way Lucas pulled his camera out and took a photograph of a storefront that had a particular air of surrealism about it in the way the mysterious, lonely dress forms were lined up in the display window. Then he turned, and took a photo of Jungwoo, too, when he wasn’t expecting it. 

“A Leica,” Jungwoo commented. “Lovely choice. I had one as a teenager. A classic 35mm film one, like what Bresson used.” 

“You know Bresson?” Lucas asked. The Frenchman was his favorite photographer, and one of the reasons this time in Paris was one of his favorites. Soon, Bresson would be using it to push photography to another level. Jungwoo raised an eyebrow at him. “Did... I teach you about Bresson?” 

Jungwoo was pleased, like Lucas was his student and he’d just solved a difficult problem. “You did. You showed me his photographs, once. I was struck by how he captured a single frame in time, but just the right one, so that it holds both the moment and the potential for violence or action,” Jungwoo hummed thoughtfully. “I wonder if he was a traveler like us, he understood time so well.” 

Lucas nodded eagerly. It was a bit like having a conversation with himself, but Jungwoo brought an entirely different energy. Where Lucas was apt to ramble on and on about photographers he admired, Jungwoo organized his thoughts into a concise, simple sentence. 

“No, no way,” Lucas said. As he spoke he gestured wildly with his hands, falling into the thoughts he’d repeated in his own head many times. Expecting the outburst, Jungwoo moved smoothly out of the way of the oncoming hands. “Only someone human who experienced time normally could pick out moments like him. We, we...” he grasped at the air as though the words themselves were there. “We let time pass over us like we’re paddling out to surf. One wave, two wave, crash, crash, _chsuuuu._ We think another wave will come, or we can just go back and try again. For Bresson it was all about _waiting_ , the hunt of the perfect photograph. If he doesn’t get it at the right time it will be gone forever. But man, it’s about the lyricism, too. Like I’ve been to some of those places and I could never see—” 

Lucas noticed Jungwoo staring at him with nothing less than adoration in his eyes. He broke off from his train of thought and covered his hand with his mouth. His toes all the way to his ears felt red hot, and he knew he was blushing furiously. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I got carried away.” 

“Don’t apologize, Xuxi. I love when you get excited.” 

There were a thousand questions Lucas wanted to ask: who are you? What are _we_? But he didn’t ask them. Instead, he let himself be content in the peace and silence of walking alongside Jungwoo. As they walked Jungwoo ran ahead of him to chase the pidgeons down the cobblestone streets in an act of silliness that was surprising to Lucas. In his head, Jungwoo was always calm and confident. 

When they arrived at the river they found a bench to settle on, one where they could watch people pass by. 

“Pierre Nora is a French historian, focuses on memory. He’s a contemporary, for us,” Jungwoo said. “He said ‘it is when we stop experiencing memory spontaneously from within that we being to design memory, to create its external signs and traces.’ When, I wonder, do things really become _the past?_ I always think about that, traveling.” 

Jungwoo leaned forward and put his chin on his hand in thought. Lucas let him continue without interrupting. 

“I’ve been to places, like Japan right after the war, and for us it’s the past. We’re just interlopers, and even if we understand the history the pain of it had faded. But for them it’s not. I just want to reach and tell people that it will be ok. But sometimes that’s not even true.” 

Lucas’ heart broke a little, then, because it was so clear to him how Jungwoo wore his heart on his sleeve, and how every time he travelled it was impossible for him not to get some of the past stuck to him. With each place another link added onto his chain of burdens. And of course, his trip to Hong Kong so recent, Lucas knew what those chains felt like.

He reached his arm out and wrapped it around Jungwoo’s shoulder, tight, so he could pull him into a half embrace. His fingers played his the hair and the nape of Jungwoo’s neck. 

“Sorry,” Jungwoo mumbled into Lucas’ shoulder. “I don’t know many people like us, so I don’t get to talk about this much.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Lucas said, echoing Jungwoo’s own words. “I love it.” 

To think that Lucas got to have this moment with Jungwoo on the banks of the Seine. It was enough. Enough to forget the loneliness that ached deep in his bones; to forget the name that burned the skin under his watch; to forget the shake of his fingers when he worked photos in the darkroom, a tremble that came from a fear of destroying something so splendid and precious. 

Lucas knew that Jungwoo wasn’t going to give him more answers. He knew that he would leave him, again. At the end of the day Lucas would return to Taeyong’s apartment, alone, find the manuscript tucked away in the silverware drawer and make his exit as abrupt as he arrived. But he also knew, that although he didn’t have a photograph of this moment, it would be in his memories, always. It was enough. 

-

**Shanghai. 2017.**

Jungwoo was in the wind. Several months had passed since Paris, and every day of that span Lucas spent, well, moping. It wasn’t as though Lucas wasn’t _trying_ to follow Jungwoo’s breadcrumbs, because he was. Everytime he got the feeling of Jungwoo in the air, accompanied by the scent of chamomile, Lucas chased it. It was just that Jungwoo had the experience of someone of who had been running for a long time and following him through jumps wasn’t easy. He gave Lucas just enough to know that it wasn’t his imagination, not anymore. 

Now, Lucas had no actual proof that Jungwoo was on the run. But he’d sensed it when during their conversation in Paris, the sadness and regret that tinged Jungwoo’s voice when he said he didn’t have anyone else to talk to. And of course, Jungwoo never, ever stayed. 

_Patience_ was the name of the game, but it wasn’t a virtue Lucas particularly had in spades. Not when he jerked off every night thinking about the curl of Jungwoo’s mouth when he smiled. 

Kun hadn’t asked, but he clearly knew something was going on. First, Lucas had to fudge his own timeline by a few days or he would have missed his deadline when he returned from Paris. Then on his next job he completed it in record time once he realized there was no trace of Jungwoo. And finally, on the job right before he ended up in Shanghai, he mindlessly jumped straight to his apartment in Singapore without bothering to make a few inbetween to smooth over his breadcrumbs. 

At least in Shanghai there was plenty of alcohol to get his mind off things. 

Lucas was attending a gala held in a fancy, brand new high rise with a rooftop bar and patio. For some reason the waiters were all wearing extremely specific costumes relating to the Chinese zodiac, although New Years and spring festival were several months ago. Either way, the lights of the city were pretty and a woman with tastefully dyed red hair played the piano beautifully. 

All in all it was fairly boring. Lucas thought he might visit the site of some football riot afterwards just for some good hooliganing fun. He was there on behalf of Kun for _research_ , or whatever, involving organizing Kun’s client list. Kun told Lucas to roam the room, get contacts, and flirt with the middle aged women who obsessed over their appearances and went to the dermatologist for botox too often. Lucas was down for that. At the very least it was something to do, and Lucas enjoyed the boost in confidence the flirting provided.

In fact, Lucas was in the very middle of that exact thing when he caught wind of it. The chamomile on the air. He dropped the conversation completely and nearly slapped the drink out the hand of the woman he’d been talking to as he spun around, searching the crowd for Jungwoo. 

It took him several minutes, because Jungwoo was different in appearance _again._ Lucas’ gaze found him leaning against the balcony window, holding a tiny plate with food on it but not eating. He had dark, almost blue, hair this time, and looked younger and more nervous than ever before. Lucas made a beeline for him, and when they locked eyes Jungwoo’s smile was downright relieved. 

Jungwoo bit his lip as he looked up at Lucas through his eyelashes. “Hello,” he said, blushing. This Jungwoo had none of the other’s ease and quiet confidence. This Jungwoo wore his nervousness on every worried line of his face, but god if it wasn’t endearing. And it also gave Lucas the opportunity to be the confident one for a change. 

Lucas took the tiny plate of food from Jungwoo’s hand and placed it carelessly on a well-timed passing tray. He replaced it with his own hand and used it to bring Jungwoo’s to his mouth in a gentle kiss. His blush turned scarlett, and the mischievous flirt in Lucas delighted. 

“Baby hands,” Lucas cooed, holding up their still linked hands and pressing them together. Lucas’ hands were big compared to everyone’s, but truthfully Jungwoo was not much smaller than him. Jungwoo pinched at him playfully in retort. “Do you dance? It doesn’t matter, I’ll teach you.” 

The waltz wasn’t exactly Lucas’ preferred style, but it would call a lot of unnecessary attention to himself if he were to break it down in the middle of a gala. It would probably make Jungwoo laugh, though, so maybe Lucas would consider it. Jungwoo let himself be led along the whole way, not once, as far as Lucas noticed, looking at another human being. 

Jungwoo could, in fact, dance. He glided smoothly across the floor. He let Lucas lead, but it was clear he was hardly uncomfortable himself. They wove in and out of other pairs to the ebb and flow of the orchestra. It was just how things ought to be, in Lucas’ opinion—one hand on Jungwoo’s hip, the other in his hand, where both fit like they belonged. And it gave Lucas plenty of opportunity to look at Jungwoo up close, to trace the soft lines of his facial features, trying to catalog the chances from the Jungwoo he met in Paris. And, from underneath the stark white collar of his button down, Lucas noticed a familiar gold chain leading to a pale Celadon pendant resting on Jungwoo’s chest like it belonged there. 

“Lucas,” Jungwoo asked. Said man furrowed his brow. It was the first time Jungwoo had ever called him anything but Xuxi. “ _Where_ did you learn to dance?” 

“Like I’m so uncultured?” Lucas replied. It was a joke, because Jungwoo wasn’t implying that it was surprising Lucas knew how to ballroom dance at all, but was instead asking where and when Lucas had learned. You picked up all sorts of things dabbling in the past. “My parents enrolled me in classes. They thought it would be helpful in infiltrating 16th century courts. I just wanted to impress girls.” 

Jungwoo’s eyes widened. “Your parents are...” he trailed off, though Lucas heard the _like us_ loud and clear. 

“Yeah! They taught me so much. The family vacations were pretty interesting.” 

“It makes sense, you’re so—” Lucas dipped Jungwoo suddenly, interrupting his sentence. He came up from it laughing. “Hey!” 

“I’m so what?” Lucas prompted. 

“At ease. Confident.” 

“I’ve got a shy side,” Lucas admitted. Jungwoo raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ll see.”

“Good,” Jungwoo said. “I want to. I want to know you.” It was such a straightforward admittance that it made Lucas stumble a bit. But it was also so like Jungwoo to shamelessly ask for affection. Though Jungwoo could be bashful over many things, his desire for closeness was not one of them. 

Over Jungwoo’s shoulder Lucas noticed some people in the crowd following them with their eyes, and suddenly Lucas found that he wanted the other man all to himself.

“You don’t care about any of this, do you?” Lucas asked, gesturing to the party going on around them. It was all a bunch of people talking about their money, anyways. Lucas didn’t care, certainly not with Jungwoo looking at him like he was the only person in the room. He shook his head in a silent _no._ “Great.” 

With one hand on the small of Jungwoo’s back, Lucas guided them to the balcony. It was like their first meeting—or, Lucas’ first meeting—on top of the building in Seoul. But this time Lucas was in the driver’s seat. And Jungwoo had no objection to the physical contact; in fact, the shorter man leaned even closer into Lucas’ space. 

The champagne buzzing through Lucas’ veins made him feel warm and comfortable, back to his confident self that had been cowardly hiding since he first met Jungwoo. Outside on the balcony the air was warm, a touch humid like home. The building was right on the Huangpu in the Waitan district, and from their perch they could see Shanghai’s glow reaching out towards the Pacific.

They were alone with the lights and the [ murmur of music ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-EZSab5_4&index=71&list=PLGfq0gHM_xoPJXpGD-XJTQSUFE41y7Emj) in the distance. 

Later, Lucas would come to think it was the sweetness on the air that drew them together, like how hummingbirds in spring were drawn in by the promise of sugar. It was difficult to tell what the catalyst was for the first movement. Lucas thought it was he who leaned in, but perhaps it was Jungwoo who raised a hand to brush his fingers gently over Lucas’ cheek. However it started, what happened was the meeting of their lips in such harmony that it put the orchestra inside to shame. 

They came apart in the way the moon pulled the tides away from the shore. Lucas looked down at Jungwoo, because he wanted to look at him forever, though Jungwoo could sense this with his own eyes closed. 

“Shh,” Jungwoo hushed. “Just... like this.” He brushed his thumb over Lucas’ eyes, urging them to close as well. He obeyed. They stood pressed together, Lucas’ arms around that slim waist, Jungwoo’s around Lucas’ neck, swaying to the soft music unconsciously. Lucas buried his face in the soft pillow of Jungwoo’s hair, which was a comfort sorely needed, because otherwise he was so overwhelmed by the feeling of love in that moment that he thought he may cry. He felt Jungwoo smile into his neck. 

“Wow,” Jungwoo murmured, dazed. “I didn’t know it could be like that.” 

“Me neither,” Lucas agreed. He dropped another kiss into Jungwoo’s hair, and then on the shell of his ear, just because he knew he could. Jungwoo twitched at the contact, ticklish. He slipped out of Lucas’ embrace but ensured that they remained connected through the intertwining of their fingers. Playfully, Lucas led them into a few mock dance steps before once more pulling Jungwoo into his body for another kiss. 

He was delirious with happiness he could pass out. 

“Lucas,” Jungwoo said directly into his mouth. There it was again—Lucas. The way he said it was adorable, of course, but it was also ugly. Wrong. Jungwoo shouldn’t call him that. 

“Xuxi,” Lucas said. He received furrowed brows in response, which were cute, so he kissed them. “Call me Xuxi, not Lucas. It’s... it’s what my family called me.” 

“ _Called_ you,” Jungwoo said carefully. The follow-up question was on the tip of Jungwoo’s tongue but he pulled off before it could come out. He shook his head, fluffy hair bouncing along with him. “No, I’m sorry. That’s too much.” 

“No, it’s ok. You... you said you wanted to know me, right? Well, I want to know you, too. And I want you to know me and me know you—uh, I think. Anyways.” Lucas walked them back so Jungwoo could lean against the balcony railing, bracketed by Lucas’ arms. Jungwoo twisted around so that they stood back-to-chest, facing the view of the city below. This way, Lucas could say the words right into the other man’s ear. 

“My parents died,” he said. If he closed his eyes he could pretend the lights of Shanghai were Hong Kong’s. Jungwoo’s hands folded over his and he rubbed circles into the back of Lucas’ hands. Without knowing its meaning, Jungwoo brushed over the heavy watch on Lucas’ wrist. He brought it up to be directly in their eyesight. “My father gave me this watch. It was his uncle’s before him, and someone else’s before that. There’s an inscription on it that reads ‘time changes everything.’ He wanted it to be a reminder, I guess, that even we aren’t immune to time. We never got the chance to talk about it. Sometimes I wonder if my parents even wanted me to inherit what they could do.” 

“Maybe it’s not my place but...” Jungwoo trailed off quietly before regaining confidence and continuing. “Maybe they gave it to you as a tether. Like a string for a kite that protects it from getting blown away.”

Lucas sat on the comment in silence, letting it mix with the turmoil and insecurities that already stewed in him. Jungwoo seemed to sense that he needed this time, because he let it continue for more than two minutes. 

“My parents... they don’t know. I’ve never told anyone in my family,” Jungwoo shook his head. “But it’s not good to obsess over the unknowable. Even time doesn’t reveal everything. We know that.” He turned and practically threw all of his body weight into Lucas’ arms. He wore a bright smile that lit up every feature. It granted Lucas’ the ability to shake off his melancholy. “We have the unfolding present! Right here!” 

“And what do you want to do with it?” Lucas teased. Jungwoo pouted while he pretended to think. 

“Karaoke?” 

Later, Lucas realized that that little piece of information about his family was the only real piece of information Jungwoo had ever shared with him. 

-

Lucas managed to find them a small KTV room designed for just two. It was a bit cramped, resulting in Jungwoo needing to practically sit on Lucas’ lap, not that either of them minded. Thankfully there were a wide range of songs available. While Lucas directed his enthusiasm towards renditions of english rap songs that made Jungwoo devolve into a puddle of hiccuping giggles, it turned out the other had quite a lovely singing voice. He serenaded Lucas with IU songs until he had him squirming and blushing. 

Choosing to consider the love songs as a declaration of war, Lucas fought back by trying to be as distracting as possible during Jungwoo’s songs. This included making a series of increasingly ridiculous faces that left Jungwoo struggling to breathe through his laughter, much less sing. It also included Lucas’ hands wandering inside of Jungwoo’s shirt, running his fingers over the flat line of Jungwoo’s stomach. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as soft as Lucas expected—under his gentle eyes Jungwoo was hiding an impressive set of abs. 

One of Lucas’ favorite things about Jungwoo, he was learning, was how he took every gesture of kindness as a personal compliment. These compliments also flustered him easily. Take when Lucas sweet-talked the girls working the front desk into allowing them order pizza from the place across the street and get it delivered to the booth. All Jungwoo had said was that he was hungry, but for Lucas, he hardly needed to think about the way he leaned over the counter and laid on the charm to get things going his way. 

When Lucas told Jungwoo he paid for the meal using cash from a wallet he picked off a man in the coat-check, Jungwoo pretended to scold him, although Lucas had a clear view of his pupils dilating at the thought of Lucas’ minor crimes. 

“Bad boy,” Jungwoo whispered hoarsely, nipping at Lucas’ lips. He kissed right back and did Jungwoo one better, wrapping an arm around his waist in order to bring them closer, go deeper.

It was a good thing the rooms were fairly private, because Lucas suspected the decent citizen proprietors didn’t appreciate boys making out in them. No matter, considering Lucas at that point already had a well-developed sense of disregard for following rules.

The KTV place closed at midnight, but Lucas never wanted the night to end. As good as things were going, he knew in his gut that Jungwoo wasn’t going to stay with him for long. He never did. Their timelines hadn’t converged, not yet. With the ticking clock in mind, Lucas struck out with Jungwoo onto the still very-much-alive Shanghai streets to find ways to fill the seconds as best he could. 

As they walked, Lucas continued his quest to keep Jungwoo laughing and happy by noseing at his dark hair. What could he say? The smell of chamomile that stuck to Jungwoo was addicting. He’d certainly spent enough time the past months chasing after it, not that this Jungwoo knew that, but some confused looks by strangers weren’t going to stop Lucas from getting his fill. 

“You haven’t taken a photo yet,” Jungwoo remarked at some point during their traverse. They’d paused under a shop awning. Lucas was mesmerized by the green neon glow the sign projected onto the side of Jungwoo’s face. 

“You’re right,” Lucas said. He hadn’t realized it, himself. The fact that this Jungwoo knew about the photos meant that Lucas always took them when they were together. The thought felt warm in his chest. “I usually take them when I feel like the moment is about to slip away.” 

_Are you going to slip away, Jungwoo?_

“You should take one,” Jungwoo said. That meant yes, he was. Lucas aquiested and tugged his camera, a much newer version than his Leica, from his bag. He framed Jungwoo in the neon glow. 

_Focus. Shutter. Click_. 

“What do you do with them?” Jungwoo asked curiously, though he didn’t ask to see it the result. Not that he could have, considering Lucas always shot on film. 

“Just collect them,” Lucas shrugged. 

“Are you trying to collect me _?_ ” Jungwoo asked. 

“Yes,” Lucas said. It was the right answer; it made Jungwoo smile warmly, and Lucas got a kiss for it. It was only the truth.

-

**Eastern Ireland. 1430.**

Jungwoo was waiting for him on the crest of a grassy knoll that overlooked a cliff by the sea. The grass underfoot was rich and plush in color and feel. Lucas jumped straight into the meadow, confident it would be safe to do so. The breadcrumbs Jungwoo had left for him to follow had been quite clear in their direction and had even included the rare physical note. Usually breadcrumbs were just a impression of the jump, a lingering trace of their interruption in time. 

It hadn’t been long since their date in Shanghai, for either of them. Jungwoo’s hair was still dark, a childlike innocence still clung to him. But the confident man Lucas first met was brewing just under the surface. 

Said man sat on a thick wool blanket, probably hand-woven by someone’s grandmother, curled up in a cozy-looking cream sweater. He waved at Lucas, who bounded up the hillside and definitely did not nearly slip while doing so. It was Lucas’ responsibility to bring the picnic. He’d even acquired one of those traditional thatch baskets he saw in movies. 

From his sitting position Jungwoo gleamed up at Lucas and reached his hands up and made cute grabbing motions at him. Lucas set the basket down carefully and fell into those awaiting arms. 

Although it was a humble picnic, this meeting was perhaps their most significant yet, based on the simple fact that it had been _planned_. They’d organized a trail of breadcrumbs for them both to follow, their little subtle directions that they could follow but any other nosey traveler could not. It wasn’t a serendipitous meeting at a random points in time. It was a date. A real date. 

Jungwoo was the one to pick the time and location. Ireland was obvious enough a choice—the rolling green hillside was positively stunning. The air as well was clear and crisp, standing in sharp contrast to the congestion of Hong Kong and Singapore. Why the year 1432 Lucas had no clue, but he suspected it was because Jungwoo enjoyed the peace and quiet—and also wanted Lucas all to himself. 

This was all fine with Lucas, because the solitude allowed them to make out for several minutes uninterrupted, beginning with the moment Lucas reached the blanket. Jungwoo’s hands slid into his hair and tugged gently. With his tongue Lucas found entry into the warm cavern of Jungwoo’s mouth; he enjoyed the little imperfections and human qualities in the way his partner kissed, and how every so often they needed to break apart because they couldn’t stop smiling and giggling. 

They found themselves intertwined on the blanket, food forgotten for the time being. Jungwoo was soft and pliant laying on his back and Lucas hovered over him on one elbow. It was a balancing act, because Lucas didn’t want to fall on the other man, but he also couldn’t resist the urge to caress Jungwoo’s cheek and hair, either. Jungwoo’s foots, sans shoe, stroked up and down Lucas’ calf.

And every time Lucas pulled away Jungwoo asked for another kiss. He always got what he wanted. The pout was impossible to resist. 

But eventually Lucas did break away, motivated primarily by how un-sexy the grumbling of his stomach was. From the basket he removed each item carefully and presented them like the picnic was a performance. 

“Red wine from Rome,” he showed Jungwoo. “From the Pope’s private collection.” 

“Wine worth going to hell for,” Jungwoo joked. 

“Paired with the finest New Zealand goat cheese. And of course, what’s cheese without some bread. This loaf is from Turkey. Or I guess the Byzantine Empire. They don’t make bread like they used to. For good reason! But this bread is great, I promise. And I brought silverware from my private collection.” 

“And where were they _before_ your private collection?” Jungwoo swirled the delicate stem of one of the crystal wine glasses Lucas packed between his fingers. The way the light glinted off the curve of the glass distracted Lucas for a moment. 

“Some Duke’s private collection. The man had a strange obsession with vases, I’m sure he never noticed some of the knives were missing,” Lucas said. When the basket was empty he held it up like a prize. “This was even hand-woven in Morocco!” 

Jungwoo took careful time to examine the basket, drawing a slender finger lightly over the bends and tucks of the fiber like it was the most prized piece of art he’d ever seen and that it was a privilege to be able to touch it. Jungwoo looked at many things like they were precious. Lucas counted himself among them. 

“Thank you,” Jungwoo said sincerely. “It’s all so thoughtful.” 

Lucas knew from the start while he was collecting that Jungwoo would find his efforts especially touching, because it was just like Jungwoo to find beauty in the little details of every gesture. Besides which, the gathering itself had been fun. 

The wine brought a beautiful color to Jungwoo’s cheeks. It stained his lips a deep red, too, like he’d been eating a blood orange. When Lucas leaned over and kissed him it added a sharp tang to Jungwoo’s normal sweetness. 

“Have you been here before?” Lucas asked, letting his curiosity get the better of him. His preferred tactic was to let Jungwoo reveal things to him and his own pace, because when pressed Jungwoo adopted the appearance of a frightened deer. But the picnic site was the perfect location for them, and Lucas was wondering how it’d been found. 

“Just once,” Jungwoo told him. “Someone I knew brought me here.” Lucas nodded, but didn’t pry anymore. He already knew that Jungwoo didn’t have any other traveler friends, so whoever told him about it clearly wasn’t in the picture anymore. 

Ocean waves crashing against the sides of the rocky cliff were their soundtrack as they lounged on their blanket. Lucas let Jungwoo feed him grapes, but did almost choke when Jungwoo’s pretty eyes distracted him from the simple task of chewing. Once Jungwoo slapped his back a few times he found it amusing. 

Lucas’ love sickness was approaching near-pathetic levels. 

When the food had been eaten and most of the wine drunk they leaned back and Jungwoo pillowed his head on Lucas’ chest. His delicate hand rested over Lucas’ heart and the beat moved through him into Jungwoo’s body, as one. 

“That cloud looks like a grandfather clock,” Jungwoo said. Lucas squinted. 

“No, a flamingo!” He said. 

“A _flamingo?_ In Ireland?” Jungwoo laughed. 

“Hey, it’s no problem, it’s a cloud!” Lucas said. “Clouds go where they please.” 

After some more minutes of cloud watching the activity became tired, so from a crumpled corduroy bag Jungwoo pulled out a worn red book. On the cover, in faded silver letting, read _the Poems of W.H. Auden_ . Jungwoo flipped to a dog-eared page, to a poem called _As I Walked Out One Evening_. 

Lucas pulled the man more fully onto his lap, head tucked over his shoulder. Jungwoo began to read. 

_“I heard a lover sing_

_under an arch of the railway:_

‘Love has no ending.   


_I’ll love you dear, I’ll love you_

_till China and Africa meet...”_

Jungwoo read with the confidence and pace of someone who gone over the lines many times in the past. He read the poem with all the care and love as if he were singing it. In the margin of the page tiny notes were written in deep blue pen. Lucas had never seen Jungwoo’s handwriting before—he thought, curiously, that it looked remarkably similar to his own. 

_“But all the clocks in the city_

_began to whirr and chime:_

_‘O let not Time deceive you,_

_you cannot conquer time...”_

Lucas let the poem seep into his soul as Jungwoo’s voice soothed him and he brushed his hand through soft locks. 

“I know we can just have these moments for now,” he whispered into Jungwoo’s ear once he finished reading. He wrapped his arms around him tight. “But our stories are waiting to converge. I know one day they will.” 

“All in time,” Jungwoo whispered back. As one they moved together to embrace chest-to-chest. Into the kiss Jungwoo said: “Because time changes everything.” 

-

**Singapore. 2019.**

Lucas was just finishing pinning up his newest photo of Jungwoo—by that point he had quite an expansive collection—when his phone buzzed. Kun. 

_My apartment, one hour ago._

An in-person meeting with Kun only meant one thing: Lucas was in trouble. He sighed. In his mind he imagined with as much clarity as he could muster Kun’s comfortable living room, his beige couch and sunshine yellow walls. He felt the telltale pressure in his stomach grow, the buzz spreading down his arms, and when it reached the tips of his fingers he brought his thumb and middle finger into a _snap_ that threw him into the jump. 

The next moment, Lucas was standing in Kun’s apartment, one hour ago to the minute.

That never got old. 

Kun stood in front of him with a steaming mug of chamomile tea, which he handed to Lucas as soon as he appeared. Lucas smiled at the smell, bringing him back to his last date with Jungwoo and the way that smell had clung to his hair. 

But Kun wasn’t smiling. 

“You’re an idiot,” he told Lucas. His own smile dropped immediately. “The chamomile is a breadcrumb, isn’t it? Even I’ve been smelling it, and this is just confirmation. You’re being reckless, even for you. Who are the breadcrumbs from?”

“None of your business,” Lucas frowned, trying to look anywhere but the other man. He didn’t like fighting with Kun, but it appeared as though things were inevitably headed in that direction. 

“None of my—” Kun said incredulously. He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Lucas, I am _trying_ to watch out for you! You’re making it really fucking difficult right now.” Kun sat down in his armchair heavily. Lucas mirrored him by sitting on Kun’s purposefully-uncomfortable beige slab cosplaying a couch. “Something has been going on with you since that botched Korea job and... oh my god.” 

Lucas winced. He waited for the other shoe to drop. 

“Please don’t tell me,” Kun groaned. Lucas was positive he was the number one cause of every sign of age on Kun’s face. “You met someone, didn’t you? In Korea? The chamomile person who has you jumping across the globe like a love-sick teenager who doesn’t know the first thing about misdirection. But Lucas, you _do_ know better. How do you know they’re not BTA?” 

“He’s not BTA. I’m sorry,” Lucas mumbled, not really sorry at all, but definitely embarrassed by the lecture. Kun sighed and looked at him with a terrible softness that was somehow even worse than the lecture. Kun was, without a doubt, pitying him for being such an idiot. 

“I’m not mad,” he said sincerely. “I’m worried.” Kun could have his outbursts of frustrations, but he wasn’t the type to be angry. Lucas, in many years of knowing, had only ever seen Kun angry once. It was when one of the travelers he’d once worked with eye’s got too big and decided to go after a stupidly risky target. The BTA tracked him down and Kun’s friend was killed in the pursuit—hit by a bus in London by accident. 

Sometimes a lot of chance was mixed in with time. 

Lucas didn’t even know the guy’s name. That was another thing about travelers—they didn’t spread their network unless they had to. 

“There are rumors,” Kun said carefully. “That the BTA is getting a handle on you. Your patterns, traces. They’re pretty sure you’re the culprit of the Paris job.” 

“So what? It’s happened before and nothing came of it.” 

“You still have that bag I told you to back?” Kun asked, barrelling right over Lucas’ train of thought. Lucas nodded. “Good. Make sure it’s ready to go. We have a plan, and I’ll try to find you, but—” 

“I’m mostly on my own,” Lucas said. “You worry too much, Kun. I’m sure it won’t come down to that, but if it does there’s no need to put yourself in danger for me. But really, we both know the BTA can’t navigate enough jumps to get out of a paper bag. It’ll be fine.” 

“Just be more careful, ok?” Kun asked, practically begged. 

“I will,” Lucas promised. “ _We_ will.” 

Lucas knew that, somehow, there would be a way to keep leaving breadcrumbs for Jungwoo while keeping his head down for a while. In the back of his mind a voice was telling him that Kun was right; if the BTA had their eyes on Lucas the best thing to do would lay low until someone else caught their attention. But that wasn’t an option for him. What would Jungwoo think if he just dropped off the face of the earth? The other man was flighty enough—no way was Lucas going to hurt him by cutting off contact. 

There was a way. Lucas just had to find it. 

-

**Pemaquid Point, Maine. 1705.**

History was built in layers of time. It was visible in the rings of trees and the stratification lines in the soil. The fort in front of them was in rubble but in time, Jungwoo said, the rubble would be replaced and the site rebuilt into another fort that would, too, fall. All man-made things that would come to man-made ends. 

One day, even later that that, it would become a museum so parents in flip flops could teach their sunburned children about war and run their hands over rocks that bore witness to history, although the reconstruction masquerading as authentic history would come far later than the siege whose story it told. 

But for the moment, it was just a pile of rocks with a lovely view out into the Atlantic on the rocky shore of Maine. 

Lucas thought it would be nice to do a study of the place, like Van Gogh’s haystacks. Unfortunately Lucas was pathetic with paint of any kind—somewhere in his childhood there was an embarrassing story involving his childhood crush in a white dress and an unwieldy paintbrush. People saw the evidence of time’s passage everyday, even in things they hardly noticed, but there was something immensely satisfying in the documentation of it. So, no paint, but his photography would be just fine. 

Together they walked the shore in their bare feet, hands intertwined. Jungwoo had them stopping every few steps to reach down and pick up a new rock or shell or sea glass, until Lucas’ pockets were heavy and rattling with their souvenirs. 

Jungwoo searched with a child-like wonder, as if he expected to uncover a fantastic secret with every rock he overturned. He liked to be outside, like the adventure in discovery. 

Lucas liked the seaglass best. When Jungwoo bent down the Celadon necklace fell out from under the collar of his shirt and the pale green of the glass smoothed by the powerful push and pull of time and the sea matched the green hue of the necklace. 

Time may change everything, but if you look closely you can still find patterns. 

Lately, Lucas had been feeling more stable than ever. He hadn’t gone to visit his past in Hong Kong since he’d gone after first meeting Jungwoo a matter of months ago. It was, by his measure, his longest stretch ever. 

Hand-in-hand they approached the shallows of the shore. Even in the dead of summer the ocean was still icy cold and the two of them played chicken, racing and dodging the tiny waves. Lucas loved hearing Jungwoo’s yelp and laugh, loud and open, able to be utterly himself when they were together. Neither of them were pretending to be distant lords, merchants, scholars, or any number of other characters they took on when traveling. They were just their unburdened selves. 

Lucas hunted the wet and rocky sand, pants rolled up above his calves, for tiny snails in pearlescent shells. He looked up just in time for Jungwoo to splash him. 

Oh. It was so on. 

Jungwoo took off down the shore in a dead spring, doing his best to dodge the seaweed and rocks in his way. Lucas took off after him and used the inch or so he had on Jungwoo to his advantage. He caught him twenty meters down the shore, grabbing Jungwoo around the waist in both arms and using the momentum to pick him up and spin them around. Jungwoo laughed cackled so hard he shook. 

“What was that huh?” Lucas demanded, though he was laughing along. “Huh? Did you want to get wet?” 

Lucas waded into the water, ignoring the bite of the cold and the gentle sting of the salt on his ankles. 

“No!” Jungwoo squealed. He kicked his legs around to avoid accidentally dipping his toes in. “Put me down Xuxi!” 

“Oh, now you want to be put down?” Lucas lowered Jungwoo towards the water. “Sure.” 

In the second Lucas hesitated in dropping Jungwoo the other jumped them, so that instead of sending Jungwoo into the water he just fell into the safety of the pale grass above the beach. Lucas opened his mouth in shocked surprise that quickly turned into a smirk as an idea set upon him. If Jungwoo wanted to play _that_ game, well, so could Lucas. 

Lucas waved lazily to Jungwoo before taking off in a jump of his own. It was a short one, no time at all, just to the other side of the peninsula where at some point in time the locals would build a lighthouse. The beach there was softer, less rocky than the one before. Tall marsh grass at the top of the beach created a sense of privacy on the narrow strip of land between that and the sea. 

He ran forwards, trying to focus on feeling Jungwoo’s arrival. He ended up seeing it first, however, because Jungwoo made the smart jump and landed smoothly in front of him. The two of them regarded each other, then, both huffing slightly but neither willing to back down. 

Lucas ran right at Jungwoo, who took a step back in surprise. Lucas jumped behind him when Jungwoo was on his back foot. They danced like that, up and down the beach, each trying to get the better of the other. The jumps were short and the game was fun, but it was a bit like drinking in that it was tough of the body. Lucas would was expecting what was like a time travel hangover the next morning. 

The game ended when Jungwoo jumped a little above Lucas and managed to snatch his arm while Lucas was just making his jump, sending them hurtling into the space between there and not-there unbalanced, resulting in them both landing in the sand in a heap. 

“Ahhhhh,” Jungwoo groaned. “I think I have sand in my underwear.” 

Lucas burst out laughing. His ribs hurt a bit, which laughing didn’t help. “ _That’s_ what you say?” 

“ _Whaaaat_ ,” Jungwoo pouted. “It’s true.” 

Lucas hoisted himself up and looked down at Jungwoo. The other smiled up at him, face flushed and body relaxed. His hair was only a shade or two darker than the sand itself. 

Lucas was in love. 

This realization hit him like a speeding truck, of course. He didn’t trust his mouth not to randomly blurt something embarrassing out so instead he just offered a hand to Jungwoo to pull him up, too. Once standing Jungwoo looped his arms around Lucas’ neck and pecked him on the lips. 

“I’m tired,” he said. “Take me back to the fort?” 

Lucas kissed his temple. “Your wish is my command.” 

-

**Las Vegas, Nevada. 1988.**

He left the breadcrumb in Tanzania on the shore of the lake where birds came to drink: _meet me at the Flamingo in 1988._

Lucas had to admit that the message was heavy-handed. Usually it would be better to make it more subtle, but the frantic hum of _love_ running through his veins made him impatient, impulsive. 

It meant that, for once, Lucas was the one waiting for Jungwoo to arrive. 

When he did, Jungwoo looked like the version Lucas had met in Seoul more than ever before. He was used to the younger Jungwoo, the softer and shyer one. He hadn’t met a Jungwoo so old since Paris. The Jungwoo that met Lucas at the bar at the Flamingo Casino on the Las Vegas strip slunk up to him with his shirt half undone, Celadon necklace against his bare sternum, and a feline sway to his hips. He looked at Lucas with wide eyes and lips parted just enough to tease.   
  
“Care to buy me a drink?” He asked. It caused Lucas to let out a loud bark of a laugh and he decided to pull Jungwoo into a bruising kiss right there at the bar, stares or no stares. With Jungwoo by his side he felt like he had the strength of an advancing army at his back. 

“Any drink you want baby,” Lucas growled. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the Vegas atmosphere, or the sight of Jungwoo’s light blond hair, but Lucas was riled up. Maybe it was some combination or all three. The inner pocket of his eccentric zebra-print suit jacket held thousands of dollars in cash he’d prepared just for them to throw around. The money had come from less-than ethical places, of course, but Jungwoo didn’t need to know that. Not that he wouldn’t suspect it, whatever Lucas told him. 

Jungwoo ordered some fruity cocktail, which Lucas teased him for. Jungwoo’s response included a perfect raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t need to compensate for my manhood with a drink that tastes like puke,” Jungwoo said flatly. The exclamation mark on the end was how casually he went back to sipping his drink through the tiny straw. Lucas gaped at him for moment, before his stunned expression gave way to uproarious laughter. He’d missed a Jungwoo as confident and flamboyant and this one. It was hard to tell exactly, but this Jungwoo may have been even older than the one Lucas met in Seoul. 

It was not as though the younger Jungwoo was a completely different person from the older one. They were the same person at the core, just that different traits came through stronger. The young, shy Jungwoo had his confident moments and the same dry humor. Lucas had seen the same blush on the older Jungwoo’s cheeks. 

And no matter how time changed him, Lucas would always love Jungwoo. 

“Did you see the sign out front?” Jungwoo asked. Lucas nodded. The neon plumes on the Flamingo’s sign were hard to miss. That, of course, was the point. “In the future you can go visit a museum where it will end up.” Jungwoo sighed mournfully. “It really doesn’t do it justice. But I suppose the carcass has its own morbid beauty. People love to imagine some kind of glorious past. Even for a place as soulless as here.” 

“You don’t think Vegas has a soul?” Lucas asked. 

“It’s all manufactured,” Jungwoo scrunched his nose. “But it’s got its own charm, I suppose. It’s one of the strangest, craziest places on earth. Past or present, there’s nowhere like Vegas.” 

“Aw baby,” Lucas grinned. One hand curled into the short hairs at the base of Jungwoo’s neck. “You’ve got it all mixed up. Vegas is all about the experience, the moment. You know they say there are hardly any clocks in Vegas? And you can stay inside without looking out a window for hours and hours. All that matters is right now.” 

“No past, no future,” Jungwoo said, mostly into his drink. Something had him on edge. His twirled his straw while he furrowed his brow like he was internally wrestling with a particularly troubling conflict. Lucas watched him, nerves growing in the pit of his stomach. He shouldn’t have asked Jungwoo to come here—maybe it was a mistake to bring him here at all. He could have chosen New York, it wouldn’t be too late to go there instead—

Jungwoo downed the rest of his drink in one smooth movement. He smiled slyly at Lucas. 

“Ok,” he said. “Baby wants to get into some trouble.” 

“If that’s what baby wants,” Lucas said. “Then that’s what baby gets.” 

Lucas threw a ridiculous amount of cash onto the bar, grabbed Jungwoo’s hand, and pulled him deeper into the fluorescent maze of the casino. The sensory inputs were nearly overwhelming, but nothing could be more grounding than the feeling of Jungwoo’s hand in his. 

He stopped them at the first roulette table he came across. “Five hundred on whatever he says,” he told the young woman running the table. 

“Red,” Jungwoo called. 

The tiny ball spun round and round and round, and took three skips before finally settling on black. Lucas shrugged at the woman while Jungwoo burst into giggles next to him. 

“Red again,” Lucas said, putting down another five hundred. Again, it came out black. “Gahh!” Lucas cried in fake agony. Jungwoo continued to laugh, to the point where he needed press his face into Lucas’ shoulder to control himself. The vibrations of his laughter reverberated throughout Lucas’ entire body. 

It was like setting the money on fire. There was a beauty in the chaos of it, and for them, there were no consequences. They could easily replace the money they lost. They could make up the time they wasted in these halls of debauchery and excess. 

A cocktail waitress came by with free champagne for them, expected considering the amount of cash they were throwing around. Jungwoo downed his flute in one go, and then moved onto Lucas’. He didn’t care—he had plans that required him to be at least a bit sober. 

Finally, they won a round. “Is it just me,” Jungwoo pouted, his chin tucked over Lucas’ shoulder. “Or is winning not as fun?” 

Lucas nodded in agreement. They left the table and wandered hand-in-hand through the casino. It reminded Lucas of the arcade he went to as a kid with the coin operated machines. At least those games possessed the illusion of skill and accomplishment while sucking money from children’s pockets. The casinos provided entertainment, but the pointless, vacuous kind. Jungwoo was busy looking at the lights and all the signs designed to watch people’s attention, while Lucas watched the glow reflect in his eyes. There was a peach tinge to his cheeks from the alcohol. 

“Do you want to dance?” Lucas asked. 

“Only if you waltz like you did in Shanghai,” Jungwoo grinned. That was a yes. So they found themselves a club, and getting in was no issues because of the money. His watch told him the time was approaching one in the morning, so the party was just beginning to reach its peak. The throngs of people inside were dressed up, dressed down, drunk and happy, or on some drugs or another. Cocaine most likely, being the 80s and all. Was Jungwoo interested in doing cocaine? Probably not, Lucas thought. 

They weren’t on any list, but with Lucas’ charm that wasn’t an obstacle. He could be on any list if he said so. With Jungwoo’s adorable puppy-dog eyes they were a lethal combination. In that fashion they landed a table with bottle service, which in itself came with throngs of girls and a couple of their male friends along for the ride. Of course, neither cared for them, but they made for good entertainment. Lucas could tell Jungwoo was having a good time flirting with the men, because in the face of Jungwoo they were just as aroused as they were confused. But while he did so, Jungwoo’s hand never left Lucas’ knee, the round form of which fit perfectly into the palm of his hand. 

Inside the club the night became a whirlwind. The strange girls hovering at their table wanted champagne, so bottles appeared. The men wanted whiskey, so that appeared, too.A devious thought sprung into Lucas’ head. He grabbed one of the unpopped bottles and shook it quickly. Before Jungwoo knew what was happening Lucas popped the bottle and foamy stream of champagne showered onto the unsuspecting Jungwoo. 

Lucas cackled at Jungwoo’s expression of what only could only be described as amused indignation. He apologized by licking the sweet alcohol from Jungwoo’s face and lips, which definitely had Jungwoo grinning ear-to-ear. 

Jungwoo absolutely insisted that Lucas dance with him, so after their fun with the bottles they ended up in the center of the dancefloor, Lucas wrapped around Jungwoo’s back, both hands firmly placed on those slim hips. He grinded up into the curve of Jungwoo’s ass and they both gasped at the sensation, which for Lucas turned into a deep groan. 

Jungwoo’s hips were sinful, how they moved, and Lucas was but a willing passenger on the ride. Those hips said _bend here_ and _circle there_. Jungwoo’s body was so familiar to him, despite them never actually having had sex, just from the amount of time he’d pressed up against it in prolonged make-out sessions. When he first met Jungwoo, Lucas knew that he wanted to know him in all the ways he knew himself. Now, he realized, that was coming true. Lucas may not have known many details about Jungwoo’s actual life, but he knew the way his body responded to attention, and what he thought about in quiet moments, and the shape his soul took. Those things were more intimate than any childhood memory or home address.

There had been plenty of times in the past when Jungwoo made him hard—Lucas was a young guy, after all. But most of their dates in the past were outside, and despite them being in situations where it was unlikely they’d be seen, Lucas was not exactly turned on by the thought of dirty anywhere near his dick. And Jungwoo always slid away before Lucas could suggest finding a more private location. They’d been taking it slow—physically, not quite so emotionally—and Lucas was fine with that. Totally. 

The number of time Lucas had jerked off to thoughts of Jungwoo might have been in the hundreds. 

So Jungwoo had made Lucas hard before, but nothing like this. He would have been embarrassed by his obvious erection pressed against Jungwoo’s ass on the dancefloor if said ass wasn’t so shameless about grinding into it. 

Jungwoo was sweaty, needy, and absolutely gorgeous.

“Do you like it when other people look at me?” Jungwoo said, low, for Lucas’ ears only. Lucas did, he really did. People looked at Jungwoo everywhere he went, in any place, in any time. He just had that ethereal, mysterious quality to him, paired with a kind of innocence that drew people in. Lucas himself was not immune to the allure. 

“Yes,” Lucas urged him on. He knew what Jungwoo wanted to say, and he wanted to hear those words. 

“Do you like knowing that what they want only you can have?” Lucas bit down on the juncture on Jungwoo’s shoulder and neck, a bit more harshly than he intended, but then Jungwoo’s words had a stronger effect on him than he thought they would. In apology he lapped his tongue against the spot, and was thus privilege to the full body shiver that ran through Jungwoo. The skin there was sticky and sweet from the champagne. 

“I’ll take that as a yes. I like it, too. I like to tease people, to see that they think I’m pretty, but I like knowing that however much I tease they can’t touch me, because I belong to someone else.” Jungwoo turned his head so he could whisper this filthy love language directly into Lucas’ ear. “Because I belong to _you,_ Xuxi. After everything I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll always be waiting for you, because time can’t keep us apart. I love you, Xuxi. I love you.” 

It was too much for Lucas to take. He broke their rhythm and grasped Jungwoo’s wrist roughly. Through the thick of the crowd his legs pulled them automatically towards the bathroom he’d spotted earlier when they arrived.

“Xuxi?” Jungwoo called from behind him, voiced laced with panic. 

Lucas wanted more than anything to hold him and tell him everything was all right, but he wouldn’t stop until they had some kind of privacy, where Lucas could at least hear him clearly without needing to fight over the pounding music. He needed himself to be completely clear. 

He barged to the front of the line to the indignant cries of the other patrons, but Lucas could hardly give a shit about them. He slammed the door shut behind Jungwoo and the two were left in silence except for, of all things, Michael Jackson’s _the Way You Make Me Feel_ coming in muffled through the door. 

Lucas stared at Jungwoo. Jungwoo stared back at him, eyes wide with tears prickling at the corner. His heart was open and bare. 

Again, his body moved automatically. Lucas embraced Jungwoo and pressed their lips together sloppily. Jungwoo gasped and his hands frantically scrambled to find purchase on Lucas’ shoulders. Once they did, he held onto Lucas for dear life. Somehow, with his mind entirely occupied by _Jungwoo, Jungwoo, Jungwoo,_ Lucas managed the navigate them over to the sink so he could hoist the object of his thoughts onto it. Legs came to wrap around his waist, pulling them ever closer. 

Someone knocked angrily on the door. 

“Fuck you!” Jungwoo yelled. The sudden delirium broken, the two of them began to laugh—at the night, at Jungwoo’s cursing, at everything. They both remembered that they were human and still needed to breathe. 

Lucas pressed their foreheads together tenderly, cupping Jungwoo’s face in his hands. 

“I love you,” he said. “Anytime, anywhere. Always, ok?” 

“Yeah,” Jungwoo said. “Always.” Their lips came together tenderly. When they broke apart Lucas just cradled him in his arms. 

“Um,” Lucas said. “This is a great moment and all, but I’m so hard I could cry.” 

Jungwoo stared blankly at him for one beat, then two. He had an amazing poker face, but in the face of Lucas it couldn’t last for long. Jungwoo cracked a smile, and then set Lucas’ whole body on fire by unceremoniously sticking his hand down Lucas’ pants. 

It felt as though all of the air left Lucas’ body at once when he groaned. Having Jungwoo touching him, finally, was like the accumulation of every teenage wet dream and every sordid jerk-off session he’d had in the past few months. 

“You too, you too,” Lucas said. Now that Jungwoo was in front of him in actual lighting, Lucas could see how he was not the only person affected by the evening’s events. Jungwoo’s hard on was clearly visible through the line of his pants, mostly because it appeared as though he wasn’t wearing briefs. Fuck. Lucas fumbled with the fly, which made them both giggle. He wasn’t used to laughing during sex, but honestly? Lucas kind of dug it. It was nice, easy. Them. It also took away from the fact that this was happening in a club bathroom. There was probably cocaine under Jungwoo’s ass. 

What was also nice was the slide of their dicks together. And god, the _look_ of it. Fortunately, the bathroom came equipped with tiny bottles of hand lotion. The club proprietors probably assumed people used them for lube, because they were unscented. After everything tonight, Lucas would not have to worry about his dick smelling like roses. 

Jungwoo gasped and bucked up into Lucas’ hand. The ability to fit both of their erections in his grasp was, by far, the best benefit of having large hands Lucas had ever experienced, making up for every time he couldn’t find a pair of cool gloves that fit him properly. 

The sound of them together was lewd and it only drove Lucas to push the pace fast, squeeze a little harder until it was just left of too much. 

Heels dug into Lucas’ back, hard enough to hurt. It was the only warning he got before Jungwoo was coming over his hand, the mere sight of which had Lucas coming, too. Lucas recovered first, and without leaving Jungwoo’s embrace, fumbled for some paper towels to clean them off. Jungwoo himself was a puddle in Lucas’ arms, as he had the hard task of trying to recover from the roller coaster of emotions he’d just been on. 

“Let’s get out of here.” Lucas said as they caught their breath. Jungwoo nodded. Lucas pulled Jungwoo gently off the sink and made sure his grip was tight. His jump took them out to an alley off the strip, away from potentially watchful eyes. 

“They’re gonna have to break that locked door down,” Jungwoo laughed. He still seemed a bit out of it, and was reluctant to let go of Lucas in any way, but the joking around was a sign that he had tuned back into reality. 

“Eh, they’ll figure it out,” Lucas said. “Eventually.” 

“Where to?” Jungwoo asked. He entwined their fingers and gave an encouraging squeeze, a playful smile lighting up his features. They were thick in the depths of the night. Lucas was filled with a restless energy and he wanted to go _somewhere_ , anywhere, but instead of jumping to get there, he found he wanted to go the old fashioned way. He always missed out on the journey. 

He led them down the alley and jumped them to a parking lot still in stride. As a traveler himself Jungwoo wasn’t caught off guard by the sudden change in scenery and kept up easily. Lucas strolled through the lines of expensive cars until he found one that caught his eye—a Porsche convertible. As it lacked modern safety measures he was able to jimmy the lock open in a matter of seconds and pop open the panel under the wheel leading to the electrical wires. 

“You know how to hotwire a car?” Jungwoo asked over his shoulder. 

“You don’t?” Lucas retorted. Although he couldn’t see him, Lucas could clearly see Jungwoo’s casual shrug in his head.

“Fair.” 

The engine came to life with a pleasing purr. Lucas leaned across the passenger seat to unlock the door for Jungwoo, who slid in and quickly made himself comfortable. Lucas shot him a devilish grin. Jungwoo returned it with an indulgent one. The gear shift felt good in his hand, even better when Jungwoo’s joined it. The Porsche tore out of the lot and out into the hot desert night. 

Lucas had no idea where he was going. Of course he didn’t—he was used to a GPS directing him places, and he could barely even drive. Jungwoo laughed at him whenever he grinded the gears, though he shouldn't have been laughing, because Jungwoo’s skills were hardly any better. His goal was just to drive towards the tall, sharp mountains that haloed the city where there were no lights. 

The further they got away from the Strip the flatter the landscape became. The roads were smooth and well maintained from the lack of weather, the perfect surface for the Porsche to glide along, working its way up to higher and higher speeds. The faster Lucas went the wilder the wind whipped around them. Exhilaration thrummed through their veins. 

Out of the corner of his eye Lucas saw Jungwoo shift in his seat, maneuvering onto his knees until he could stretch himself up and reach up into the night. With both of his arms in the air, eyes closed, and head turned up, Jungwoo yelled into that dark void. 

It was for certain the loudest Lucas had ever heard Jungwoo. When the other collapsed back into the seat he was grinning ecstatically, pumping with adrenaline, and for a moment Lucas regretted ever getting into the car, because he couldn’t kiss Jungwoo when he was driving. It was a shame. 

Their little electric fantasy came to an end when flashing blue and red lights appeared in the side mirror. The sirens followed a second later. 

“Oh,” Jungwoo smiled. “Whatever will we do? If only we could make a miraculous and sudden getaway.” 

Lucas tilted his head up and barked out a laugh. Maybe he would get his kiss after all. Lucas took both hand off the wheel so he could cup Jungwoo’s face and leaned towards him. Under them he felt the car lurch dangerously to one side, but that hardly mattered when their lips were connected. In the midst of their kiss Lucas jumped them away from the chaos unfolding in the desert—

—to the quiet safety of his hotel room, Jungwoo giggling all the while.

Due to the unusual positions pre-jump, when it was over Lucas more or less landed on top of Jungwoo on the king-sized bed. It was an unexpected benefit, however, because that was precisely where Lucas wanted to be regardless. 

Without waiting Jungwoo surged up to meet him in a kiss again, grasping firmly at the lapels of his suit jacket. The kiss contained a franticness that Jungwoo normally never possessed, but Lucas could understand it. The energy of evening, every event, had been stacking up until the moment where they were finally alone with a bed. 

Lucas found a natural place in between Jungwoo’s open and pliant hips and it seemed even more natural to grind down onto him, eliciting a sharp groan that travelled straight from Jungwoo’s mouth into Lucas’. He jumped onto the opportunity to take hold of Jungwoo’s tongue and _suck_. It was meant to be a bit of a challenge and Jungwoo took it as one, because in the next breath Jungwoo took his turn in sucking on Lucas’ lower lip, nipping at it slightly. 

He would love it if the next day his lips were bruised. 

For what was minutes but could have just as easily been hours they moved together—the roll of Lucas’ hips informed the rhythm of his lips against Jungwoo. Surprisingly, it was Jungwoo who became impatient first. He started by squirming his hips in a different pattern, throwing Lucas just off guard enough for him to pull back a small amount. 

And then the next moment Lucas lay flat on his back with Jungwoo on top of him. He gaped. 

“Did you just... _jump us_?” Lucas asked, dumbfounded and honestly, impressed. Jungwoo looked extremely proud of himself—he looked good when he was showing off. 

Jungwoo began his little show by circling his hips in Lucas’ lap at the same time he peeled his shirt off in one smooth motion that looked effortless on him but would be completely ridiculous on Lucas. 

Lucas was by no means inexperienced in the bedroom, but at that moment he felt unsure, a little shy. Mostly because Jungwoo was _so hot_ and Lucas wanted him _so badly_. He didn’t know where to put his hands and ended up stroking them up and down Jungwoo’s thighs in a way he hoped wasn’t awkward. Going off the sounds Jungwoo made, they weren’t. 

“Ah, Xuxi,” Jungwoo breathed out. The noises coming from mouth couldn’t be called moans, but were rather high-pitched whines, all of which went directly to Lucas’ rapidly growing erection. Jungwoo stuck two of his own fingers into his mouth, pushing them deep down his throat, and sucked on them, making sure they were properly wet. He dragged the digits down his collarbone and chest, teasing himself, before dropping them down to a nipple to squeeze it. 

The clear tenting of Jungwoo’s pants was practically in Lucas’ face, an open invitation, and he wasn’t about to let it go by unnoticed. The angle was strange, but it didn’t stop him from palming at Jungwoo’s clothed dick, just enough to unleash a new wave a noises from the blond. While he did so he reached across his chest to fumble out a small plastic container of lube, which he’d stuffed into his suit pocket along with the money, some of which came flying out as Lucas struggled to fish out the lube. 

He wasn’t about to stop and clean it up, either, which meant they were about to have sex on a small pile of money. What a lewd fantasy come true. Lucas could probably find them enough money to fill a bathtub and fuck in that, too. 

Jungwoo undid his belt and zip of his pants as fast as he could. There was a momentary lapse in friction when Jungwoo had to shift his weight in creative ways to remove his pants while remaining on top of Lucas, but eventually they managed it. With a lube-slick finger Lucas circled Jungwoo’s hole in a merciless tease, eliciting a sharp glare. 

“Beg,” Lucas grinned. Jungwoo huffed. 

“Please,” Jungwoo said. At the same moment he grinded down and just barely missed impaling himself onto the finger. He did still brush against Lucas’ own cock, however. “Stretch me out for you. Do it rough.” 

Now with a mission, Lucas set to work. His middle finger entered first and he worked it, pushing, twisting, and moving in and out of Jungwoo, leaving the other panting. And despite not being the subject of the ministrations, Lucas wasn’t unbothered himself. Just the sight of how his actions affected Jungwoo had him throbbing again.

As Lucas added a second finger, Jungwoo began working with shaky hands on the buttons of Lucas’ shirt. He somehow managed to be patient and undo each button individually, whereas if it had been up to Lucas he probably would have just torn the buttons straight off. Chest revealed, Jungwoo bent down and mouthed at Lucas’ chest, running his fingers up and down the skin there. Lucas shivered under the touch. 

Jungwoo’s exploration reached a nipple, which he sucked into his mouth and swirled his tongue around. One nipple was occupied by a mouth, and the other a hand. It was nice, even a little unusual, for Lucas to receive as much attention as he gave his partner. But it was only what he could expect from Jungwoo. Lucas even heard him giggle when his work made him groan loudly. 

“Come here,” Lucas said, fisting a hand in Jungwoo’s hair to tug him upwards. Everything about Jungwoo’s movement was feline: like a cat he arched his back so his flushing erection would slide against their stomachs as he moved, and the smile and glint in his eye were mischievous as well. 

The kiss was wet and messy, in some places with more teeth than Lucas ever would have thought he’d enjoy. But it felt like Jungwoo knew Lucas better than he knew himself, so of course it was perfect. 

“More,” Jungwoo begged. Lucas thought that was a perfect idea, so he added a second finger, and soon after, a third. Jungwoo gasped at the stretch. “So good Xuxi, _ah_ , yes, yes.” 

Jungwoo worked his hips, from a desire to both find friction for his cock and fuck himself on Lucas’ fingers in earnest. His eyes were squeezed shut and he tucked his head like he was really trying to focus. One of his hands used headboard for leverage, but the other was flat against the bed, entwined with Lucas’.

“We need to get your pants off, _now_ ,” Jungwoo said. He pulled off of Lucas’ fingers and he had just enough time to wipe the mess of lube onto the sheets before Jungwoo was on him, working at Lucas’ belt. The pants, jacket, and shirt all came off and joined Jungwoo’s somewhere on the floor. Jungwoo himself scrambled back onto Lucas’ lap as soon as it was done, and for a moment they just stared at each other. Jungwoo’s hair was sweaty and clung to his forehead, chest flush from the exertion. Lucas was sure he looked something similar. 

He’d gotten better at it, but too often for his liking Jungwoo was completely unreadable to Lucas. At that moment, however, Jungwoo was laid bare and Lucas could read every page of him. His eyes were dark and they said this: _I love you so much I can barely handle it._ But also: _I’m so worried._

Lucas frowned—that wasn’t right. He ran his hands slowly up and down Jungwoo’s sides. “What’s wrong?” He asked. “What’s got you looking like that, huh?” 

Jungwoo bit his lip. “Just things that will matter later,” he said, obtuse. “But I don’t want to think about them right now.” 

“I think I can help with that,” Lucas said, which was cheesy, but had the intended effect. Jungwoo laughed. 

Lucas lined himself up and entered Jungwoo slowly, with a stutter and gasp from one or the other of them—it was impossible to tell. But it was Jungwoo who whimpered when Lucas was finally inside him fully. There was no condom; Jungwoo didn’t want one, and it was a well-established fact by now that Lucas didn’t deny Jungwoo anything. 

It was Jungwoo who took the lead first, choosing to rock on Lucas’ dick instead of bounce on it, finding the overwhelming depth more pleasurable than shallower movements. Lucas gave him his hands to hold onto, Lucas’ much larger ones being a stable base. Jungwoo threw his head back, with every breath bringing with it a small gasp, and Lucas got to look at Jungwoo all he wanted. And he wanted. 

Every so often Lucas thrust up shallowly to meet Jungwoo’s rhythm in motion, eliciting a different, sharper noise of pleasure. But the pace Jungwoo set was good—it was intimate, unhurried. Nothing like the frantic sprint to orgasm in the club bathroom not so long ago. 

From the pace came a building pleasure, the kind of thing they could keep edging with for hours until both of them were desperate for release. The thought of it made Lucas’ toes curl. It made his head light. 

Soon, Jungwoo’s whole body was trembling, from his thighs to his hands. Lucas felt it under his touch. He took it as he cue to roll them over so he could let Jungwoo lay back and focus on his own pleasure. With arm under Jungwoo’s lower back, Lucas hoisted him up and placed some of the numerous pillows from the bed under him to create an angle where Jungwoo’s hips were in the air. When Lucas pushed in again it was deep and punishing—and had Jungwoo’s eyes rolling backwards and hands scrambling for purchase.

Lucas had one leg wrapped around his waist and then other bent towards Jungwoo’s chest so Lucas could hook it over his shoulder. Jungwoo was flexible enough to handle the stretch, and it opened him up to Lucas so perfectly. 

When Lucas was in control he set a pace far faster than the one before. He drove in and out of Jungwoo again and again, lost in how good that warm heat felt. But he didn’t want to be alone in this feeling, so he wrapped a hand around Jungwoo’s erection, which everytime Lucas thrust in bounced lewdly against his stomach. Jungwoo’s mouth to fall open and his pink tongue peeked out, eyes unfocused. 

Lucas slapped the soft flesh of Jungwoo’s thigh to pull him back. Jungwoo yelped, the slap causing a delicious mix of both pain and pleasure. His hand joined Lucas’ on his own erection, guiding his fingers into finding the best way to get him off. Jungwoo liked the grip to be just bordering on painful and particular attention to the head. When Lucas pressed his thumb into the slit and the precome there, Jungwoo let go his loudest moan of the night. 

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Lucas swore. Jungwoo reached for his wrist. Lucas watched, mesmerized, as Jungwoo took two of Lucas’ fingers into his mouth and swallowed them down like he had done to his own earlier. He worked the fingers like he was sucking Lucas’ cock, and took them down until he was practically choking on them. The _sight_ of it, of spit drooling down Jungwoo’s chin messily and how red his face got at the lack of air. The relentless drive of Lucas’ hips drove his fingers even deeper. 

Eventually, Lucas had to remove his fingers just so he could use them to grasp Jungwoo’s chin and pull him into a bruising kiss. 

Jungwoo could tell when Lucas began to get close. His rhythm began to suffer, not least because Jungwoo started to whisper filthy things into his ear. 

“Fuck me like that,” Jungwoo panted. “So deep I feel you tomorrow. I want my body to remember you. So use me.” 

He knew the perfect words to rile Lucas up. He chased down his orgasm with rapid-fire thrusts, ones that drove Jungwoo past coherency, and even past the ability to make any noises at all. He lay beneath Lucas mouth open, fingers frozen, until Lucas begged him to put his hands on him. Jungwoo obeyed, raking his perfectly maintained fingernails down the broad expanse of Lucas’ back. 

When Lucas came it was white-hot, every nerve end in his body seemingly firing off at once. He slumped down onto Jungwoo before he remembered that was terrible manners. And more importantly, Jungwoo had yet to come. That just wouldn’t do. 

Sliding out of Jungwoo, Lucas replaced his dick with his mouth, which caught Jungwoo off-guard. His used hole was slick with lube and cum, but in that moment it was perfect to Lucas. Outside of the bedroom, the thought of licking up his own come would have been disgusting, but it was worth it just for the beautiful way Jungwoo responded to it. Lucas used his right hand to fist Jungwoo’s cock for the second time that night, not letting up even after Jungwoo came with _Xuxi_ on his lips. He milked him through to completion, until the over-sensitivity was too much to handle. 

Lucas landed ungracefully onto the bed besides Jungwoo and they both attempted to slow their breathing. Jungwoo was first, despite having also come last, and what _he_ had in mind was to shuffle straight back into Lucas’ arms. Lucas welcomed the way Jungwoo nuzzled into the crook of Lucas’ neck. Lucas’ arms was where Jungwoo belonged. 

“I love you,” Jungwoo said, barely audible. But Lucas heard it, because it was all for him. 

“I love you, too,” he replied. 

-

Lucas half-expected Jungwoo to leave the moment they finished cleaning themselves up, but to his surprise the other man crawled right back into bed and pouted when Lucas didn’t immediately join him. But there was something Lucas wanted to do, first. 

His old-school Leica was waiting for him in his bag. “Pose for me,” he told Jungwoo. Lucas positioned himself at the end of the bed so he was photographing from a slightly higher angle than eyesight— Jungwoo laid out below the lense. He looked beyond beautiful; his hair was tousled, the sheets pooled around his bare waist, and he wore his trademark soft smile. He looked directly as the camera. “Perfect,” Lucas told him. The Leica returned to the safety of his bag. Then, finally, he crawled into bed.

It was a minor miracle when Lucas woke up with Jungwoo in arms, head still pillowed on his chest from where he’d fallen asleep. The blinds were good, and barely any light shone through. The jarringly bright alarm clock had been unplugged; Lucas’ watch lay on the nightstand. The moments was timeless. Lucas was not a person who lived without a keen awareness of the second and minute hand, but he found that the temporary unknown was liberating. 

Although Lucas was awake Jungwoo dozed on. It gave Lucas the opportunity to just study him, the him he was without anyone looking. There was a slight furrow to his brow, like even in his sleep his mind was racing with thoughts. Lucas was reminded of the moment last night when Jungwoo looked so suddenly terrified. Jungwoo was hiding something from him, of course, but when was he not? He’d been hiding something since the moment they met. Lucas had decided in France that it didn’t matter, that Jungwoo would tell him in his own time, because it’s not like Jungwoo wanted to harm him. And because Lucas loved him. 

There was someone kissing his jaw; Jungwoo had shifted in Lucas’ arms without him noticing. “You’re cute when you’re serious,” Jungwoo said. This was clearly meant to nullify Lucas, but the itch had already started to be scratched in the back of his mind—and once he started he couldn’t stop it. He pushed himself up into a sitting position as Jungwoo grew visibly more and more confused. 

“Jungwoo, what are you hiding from me?” He asked. He himself may not have realized it, but Jungwoo pulled back every so slightly as soon as the words left Lucas’ mouth. A small frown formed at the corner of his lips. “Don’t you know that I’ll love you no matter what? I can help you, whatever it is.” 

Jungwoo couldn’t meet Lucas’ eyes. “There are so many things I want to tell you about,” he said softly. “But they’re not for me to tell. Not _this_ me, at least.” 

“It has something to do when you first met me,” Lucas guessed. It was an educated one, but still a guess. Lucas had been waiting for Jungwoo’s first meeting with him since Shanghai, but it still hadn’t happened. If Jungwoo’s silence was anything to go by, he was correct. Jungwoo shuffled closer to him then, close enough so he could hold Lucas’ face in his hands. 

“It’s a burden,” Jungwoo said. He raised his right hand like he was about to snap himself into a jump. _This_ , he was saying. _This ability is the burden_. “How can I watch someone I love go through so much pain? How can I lay here and kiss you when I know what happens next?” 

“What happens? Jungwoo, what happens next?” Lucas asked, urgently. Jungwoo shook his head. He was truly upset now, tears dropping onto the sheets. 

“You know I can’t tell you,” Jungwoo said. It was strange—although he was the one Jungwoo was so concerned for, it was Lucas who did the comforting, who wrapped Jungwoo into a hug and whispered soothing words in his ear while the other cried. But soon Jungwoo’s cries faded into sniffles. Lucas wiped the stray tears from his eyes. 

“There’s a me out there waiting for you,” Jungwoo told him. He said it like it was critical. The look in his eye reminded Lucas of one other moment in his life: the day his father gave him the watch. It was like staring into a looking-glass where the image and words were different but the message was the same. _Time changes everything_ , his father had said. It was a reminder. So why did it sound like Jungwoo meant the same? 

“Our timelines are waiting to converge. I know one day they will.” 

-

**Singapore. 2019.**

Lucas practically crash landed into his apartment. He felt euphoric, and also miserable. His time with Jungwoo in Vegas had been amazing, but it wasn’t everyday he received a warning as ominous as the love of his life sobbing into his chest because he was worried about _him._

_I should talk to Kun_ , Lucas thought. He shot off a text to the other man and set his cell phone down on the counter while he went to develop his new photo of Jungwoo in his self-made darkroom. The process took some time, and as a result it ended up being a while until he returned to his phone to check his messages. 

But there were none. 

Kun was a punctual, organized person, completely unlike Lucas himself. It wasn’t like him to not text back within a few minutes. He could have been in the different place and time, and therefore out of the phone’s reach, but on the few occasions that had occured Kun always gave Lucas notice. 

Well, Lucas would just have to go over there, he supposed. Kun would be mad at him for jumping in unannounced, but that’s just what he got for not responding to his texts. 

He knew something was wrong as soon as he landed in Kun’s living room, even before he was truly aware of his surroundings. Every instinct of self-preservation he had put him on immediate edge. At first glance, there wasn’t even anything wrong or different. The couch was the same, the rug was the same. But Lucas knew the details. 

There was no music playing; Kun left some kind of sound of 24/7, even when he wasn’t home. Lucas heard nothing—total silence. No shoes by the door. Lights off, books missing. Dread pooled thick in Lucas’ stomach. He walked over to where he knew Kun’s bedroom was and pushed open the door without knocking. Here, too, everything was perfect. Noticeably perfect. 

One look in the closet was all Lucas needed to know: Kun’s emergency bag was missing. 

Kun was gone, and Lucas was fucked. 

Ok, not fucked _yet,_ but definitely well on his way. But before he allowed himself to fly into full panic-mode, he dialed Ten’s number by memory. He prayed silently, to anyone who might have been listening, while he waited for the call to connect. When it finally did—

_“Sorry, your the number you’ve called...”_

Lucas needed to get out of here, back to his place, and shortly thereafter literally anywhere else. He jumped back to his apartment, far more careful than he had left. If he wasn’t careful, his sudden entry into a time period could leave noticeable reverberations, stronger than normal breadcrumbs. Usually Lucas jumped around Singapore without thinking about it, but he had never been so close to the edge before. The BTA were definitely coming for him. 

Just like he’d promised Kun his bag was packed and ready to go. But there was something he hadn't packed. Lining his walls were the photos he’d taken of Jungwoo. Lucas scrambled to take them down and stuff them in his bag; even damaged, he wanted them with him. 

_“I really don’t know,”_ Lucas heard, muffled through the door; someone was talking in the hallway. He recognized the voice—Xiaojun. 

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. 

_“I just see him in the hallway sometimes,”_ Xiaojun’s voice continued. Lucas crept towards the door and looked through the peephole. Xiaojun was standing in his doorway across the hall, door barely open. Two men, one in a leather jacket, the other in a navy windbreaker, stood in the hall. BTA agents didn’t wear uniforms, but they did have tiny gold pins that designated their status. Lucas would bet anything the two men wore them. _“Is he in trouble or something?”_

 _“He’s not who you think he is,”_ the man in the leather jacket said. Xiaojun didn’t look at all receptive. _“Do you really see him in the hall? Or does he come and go just like... magic? Has he ever told you where his money comes from? What he does for a living?”_

Xiaojun just frowned at them.

 _“This isn’t working, Taeil,”_ the man in the windbreaker said. He made a move to reach into the back of pants and do—well, Lucas didn’t know _what_ he planned to do. Whatever it was, the motion threw Lucas into action. The thought of consequences or escape weren’t in his mind; he was only thinking about how he had to get them away from Xiaojun, who was completely innocent. He flung his door open, startling all three men in the hallway. Just like he expected, he saw that both men wore glinting BTA pins on their collars when they spun around.

“Hey,” he said, as casually as possible. He ran a hand through his hair. The other was poised in a snap. “Heard you were looking for me.” 

He jumped. 

**Hong Kong. Unknown time.**

Lucas had tried not to think too hard about his destination—he let his subconscious find him an easy place to land. His mind had churned up Hong Kong, of course. He could have expected that. Though Lucas had an advantage in his knowledge of the streets, there was no way one jump would be enough. In just a few seconds the BTA agents would be hot on his pursuit, surely with backup coming. Kun said they would try to circle him like a hunting wolf-pack, to wear him down with their numbers advantage until Lucas was too exhausted to make a big enough jump to get away. 

So he jumped again, this time to—

**Sao Paulo, Brazil. Unknown Time.**

Congestion, that’s what Lucas was thinking. Find a crowd to blend into, disperse the breadcrumbs amongst normal people. He hiked up his backpack and started walking down the busy street of downtown Sao Paulo. As he passed by a street vendor he grabbed a simple baseball cap off a display and put it on, trying to tuck as much hair into it as he could. He saw that move in movies all the time. He sped down the street for about a block before ducking into a coffee shop. 

He didn’t bother ordering a coffee. He also had no knowledge of Portuguese, and didn’t know how. No one was on a laptop, so he must have ended up in a time before the internet—1980’s, maybe. It was hard to tell when he hadn’t picked a time out specifically in his head pre-jump. 

Every muscle in his body was tense. His lip was already raw with the ferocity he’d chewed at it. 

Truthfully, he _heard_ them before he saw them. It was a phenomenon Lucas had never experienced, but as the agents drew closer, Lucas could hear on the wind the sounds of the places they had been before Brazil. He heard Hong Kong, Singapore, and others he couldn’t place but that definitely did not _belong_ in the current time. It was like a breadcrumb, but breadcrumbs were feelings, sometimes even physical objects left behind as a clue, not something that invaded the senses. But Lucas had never been around more than one traveler at a time, except his parents, but that was when he was too young to know how to listen. With multiple travelers invading the same space, the disruption was multiplied, like the fabric of time and space was being stretched too thin, where if you looked you could see right through it.

With dawning realization, Lucas understood how the agents hunted. It wasn’t breadcrumbs they followed necessarily, but the unsettling feeling of _wrongness._

Before the agents came into view Lucas rose from his chair and headed towards the staff rooms. He jumped as soon as he was out of sight. 

**Reykjavik, Iceland. Unknown Time.**

How did people live in a place it was always cold? Lucas would never be able to understand it. He would have liked to appreciate the charm of Reykjavik, still in twilight late into the night, but preferably under better circumstances. He jogged through the hills of a quiet residential street, lined with rough stone, towards some body of water he saw in the distance.

Lucas was rounding a corner when an arm shot out and closelined him. He went down hard, head spinning, and above him he could hear someone shouting _Yuta, here!_ His vision cleared in three seconds. Above him stood one of the men from his hallways—Taeil, he thought—readying what Lucas recognized as a taser. Lucas wanted to ask him how he ambushed him, but, duh, they were time travelers. 

“Fuck—

**Mostar, Bosnia. Unknown Time.**

—man,” Lucas swore. One second he was on his ass in Reykjavik, and the next he was on his ass in Bosnia. Lucas had never been to Bosnia, but as a traveler he collected magazines, brochures, and history books from around the world just so he had a glossary of places of go. 

Like anyone with a decent sense of self-preservation, Lucas tried not to go anywhere with an active military conflict, but he hoped the chaos would throw them off. He scrambled to his feet and took off in a sprint, not really bothering to pay attention to where he was going exactly, just focusing on the _getting away_ bit. The streets were brick and narrow, and acted like something of a maze. Perfect for Lucas’ purposes, as were the rattle of gunshots in the distance. 

Lucas was getting better at hearing the agents at a distance, tuned into their discordance, so hopefully he at least wouldn’t be ambushed again. However, that had to mean they were getting better at tracking him, too. But Lucas wasn’t about to give up. 

**Rome. 200 A.D.**

Fuck, what was he thinking? He stuck out the a sore thumb. Rome was a terrible idea. 

**Patagonia. Unknown time.**

Lucas landed on the rocky shore with a groan, and immediately slipped and scrapped his hands on the rocks. Everytime he jumped he felt a sharp pain in his side, between his ribs. The short distance jumps were still ok, but the further, time-spanning ones were taking their toll. He would need to think of a better strategy, and fast, because the agents weren’t leaving a lot of time for Lucas to sit down and hash out a good plan. 

When he was young, his parents took him to the shores of Croatia. They hiked halfway towards where the cliff dipped down into the ocean, away from a village with red-dipped roofs, because Lucas became tired and they jumped the rest of the way. His father smoked unfiltered cigarettes and read beaten paperbacks, while he and his mother explored tidepools. Lucas became upset when his mother wouldn’t let him throw the tiny critters into the sea; he could cradle them gently in his palms, but in the end they had to go back where they came

 _“They can’t find their way home like we can,”_ his mother told him. He was just a child then, one who didn’t understand that everyone and everything couldn’t jump around the world like they could. Getting lost was not a possibility. Getting left behind wasn’t a possibility. 

How, now, would Lucas find his way home? 

He remembered that day in Croatia being hot and sunny. He got a sunburn, he thought, on his face, because he ignored his father when he told him to put more sunscreen on. 

Croatia was utterly different from Patagonia. The wind roared in his ears, strong enough so that he could barely open his eyes as he fought his way across the rocks. The terrain was uneven, and although it caused him trouble, it was enough to provide him some cover as well. 

Lucas ducked behind a rock when an agent jumped into the landscape close by. Without a specific time to jump to, trying to cut him off at an earlier one was essentially just blindly throwing darts and seeing what stuck. 

Crouching behind the temporary safety of the rock, Lucas undid the clasp of his watch. His hands were red and raw from the wind and cold. He stroked his thumb over the inscription. 

_Time changes everything._

May it change things to be in his favor, next. 

Lucas couldn’t keep running forever—he could barely keep running for another few jumps. He was developing a crushing headache. But there was one thing Lucas could follow anywhere in the world, and he caught it on the wind. The smell of chamomile. Maybe he could follow that trail someplace safe. 

-

**Seoul, South Korea. Unknown Time.**

As soon as he landed Lucas focused not on his surroundings but on following the chamomile. The pain in his side was sharper now, more persistent. He pressed a hand to it as he jogged through the twilight-lit streets, following turn after turn. 

_Jungwoo never said goodbye_ , Lucas thought. It was something to hold onto. He’d known this was going to happen, but their night together was not the last. It couldn’t have been. 

_There’s a me out there waiting for you_. 

Lucas turned another corner, what he hoped would be a shortcut through a narrow alley between residential homes, the scent of chamomile getting stronger, when he ran straight into a person with a mop of dark hair. From the sound of it, they were equally surprised. 

Lucas reared back, ready to jump away or even use physical means (he’d been in his fair share of scuffles), when he stopped dead. Because in front of him stood Jungwoo, younger than ever.

“Lucas,” Jungwoo breathed, eyes lit up. He looked both completely shocked and elated to see him. And Lucas happy to see him, too, but—

But Jungwoo had a BTA pin, right there on the front of his sweatshirt.

It felt as though all the cogs in Lucas’ mind had ground to a sudden halt, leaving his body just standing there without any functioning cognitive tasks. In the face of this revelation he was frozen. Jungwoo sensed it, because the initial joy slid from his eyes. 

“Lucas, I—” Jungwoo started. “Shit.” 

“Don’t move, asshole!” A new voice yelled behind Lucas. He couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. “Put your hands and up spread your fingers. Turn around slowly.” 

Lucas followed the orders. Following orders prevented his own brain from having to think on its own. 

The person calling the shots was a skinny young man, only a bit older than Jungwoo it looked, with a dark fringe. He had a high-voltage taser pointed at Lucas’ chest. 

“Doyoung...” Jungwoo said carefully. 

“Raise your gun, Jungwoo,” Doyoung said, eyes on Lucas. 

“Sorry,” Jungwoo said. The next thing Lucas knew he was watching Doyoung go down heavy and Jungwoo was tugging insistently at his arm. He’d shot his partner with a tranq gun. “Come on, we need to run.” 

Lucas snapped back to reality. “Can you jump?” he asked Jungwoo. The other shook his head. 

“No, it’s better on foot. But I know where to go.” 

Jungwoo led them down into the subway that ran underneath Seoul. Lucas had no need to learn how to use train systems, but Jungwoo guided them deftly through the tunnels and commuter pedestrian traffic. Neither of them had a card, so Jungwoo took him by the hand and executed a jump near seamless with their strides across the turnstiles. He didn’t let go of him after, so neither did Lucas. 

“Sit,” Jungwoo commanded, pressing on Lucas’ shoulders much like how one would press on the butt of a dog. Jungwoo sat down next to him on the bench on the platform, closer than would be considered friendly. The BTA pin got removed and stuffed into a pocket, while Jungwoo pulled up his sweatshirt hood to match Lucas’ hat disguise. “We just need to make it onto the train,” he said quietly into Lucas’ ear. 

They weren’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. But pressed in close to Jungwoo Lucas felt safe for the first time in hours, even if he just found out his boyfriend (maybe—they’d never actually talked about it) was hiding his association with the BTA. 

Lucas was too tired to question Jungwoo. His head pounded, his ribs ached, and he was bleeding sluggishly from where he’d fallen in Patagonia. But wasn’t that how it always was? For whatever reason, Lucas let Jungwoo’s evasiveness slide. Now, though, he knew what Jungwoo had been hiding. He wouldn’t be able to let it slide this time. 

Against his own knee Jungwoo tapped his fingers restlessly, looking up from time to time, searching the station for BTA agents. But so far, it was just the normal crowds. Without thinking Lucas reached over and placed his hand over Jungwoo’s. He was surprised by it for a moment, but relaxed into the touch. It made Lucas wonder: how much did this Jungwoo know, about them? About his own future? 

Jungwoo visibly relaxed when they made it onto the train. Away they sped, away from the agents hunting Lucas, and probably Jungwoo, too. The analog way. Lucas didn’t ask where they were going. Despite the pin in his pocket, he trusted Jungwoo. He trusted the way he said _I love you_ like a promise.

When they finally emerged from the underground night had fallen heavy on Seoul. Jungwoo didn’t stop, however. He took them further into the quiet neighborhood streets. Lucas thought he recognized some of the buildings, actually. Then, it dawned on him. Yes, just a few blocks that way and they would be there—the place where Lucas first met Jungwoo, at the art gallery. 

“Stop,” Lucas told Jungwoo. Somehow their fingers had become intertwined and he used that to tug Jungwoo back. He diverted their path to an empty children’s playground. Lucas couldn’t wait anymore, and on top of the slide seemed like as good a place as any for them to talk. 

Lucas climbed onto the apparatus, to a relatively private spot enclosed by the neon-green metal bars. He sat down with his back pressed against them and gestured for Jungwoo to do the same opposite him. They were close enough so the tops of their knees brushed. 

He wanted nothing more than to reach across their laps and pull Jungwoo into a proper hug, a kiss, anything. He couldn’t. 

“You’re BTA,” Lucas said. It seemed like the most obvious place to start. Jungwoo nodded. 

“You know me,” he stated. “But you didn’t know that. I’m sorry, Lucas, I don’t know why future me didn’t tell you. It’s me but I can’t tell you the motivation for that.” 

Jungwoo was right. It was unfair for Lucas to question the man—the boy, really—in front of him like he was the same person Lucas had held close in Las Vegas. He was the same, at the core, but there was so much _living_ between here and then. 

“I love you,” Lucas said. Jungwoo blinked rapidly, like he was about to cry. “You now. You in the future. It’s the same. But I know hardly anything about you. So tell me, please.” 

“The first time we met you said something so similar,” Jungwoo said. His face broke into a sad, soft smile. “Ok. You know, when I was a kid, this playground was just a crappy set of swings and a metal slide. It fell over in a windstorm. I grew up just down the street. My parents don’t live there anymore, I don’t think.” 

“You told me once they didn’t know,” Lucas said. Jungwoo sighed. He was about to start speaking again when something choked him up, and that’s when he began to cry for real.

“The only person who knew growing up was Doyoung,” Jungwoo sniffled. “Because we were the same. His house is around the corner. I just shot him with a tranq gun, oh my God.” 

“Hey, hey,” Lucas said. This time, he gave in to the urge to touch Jungwoo and he grabbed both of his hands in his. They’d been connected like that almost their whole journey through Seoul. “You’ll be ok. I gave promise you that.” 

Jungwoo cried for a short while longer before collecting himself. “Another thing about this playground. The swings were where I did my first jump, by accident, of course. I was going as high as I could in the air and let go, but when I looked down at the ground I got scared. The next thing I knew I was in my bed at home, a few hours before like I never left.

“I was so scared of it, growing up. But when I was a teenager I met... someone... who changed it all for me. I never really wanted to join the BTA, but Doyoung thought it was a good idea and I thought it would be a good way to meet that important person. I ended up being right. I didn’t think this would be the circumstance, though.” 

“I’ve been wondering,” Lucas said. “The first time you met me. You always knew me, and I was just trying to figure you out.” 

“What can I say?” Jungwoo smiled. He squeezed their hands. “I’m shy.” 

Lucas laughed. When you got to know him, Jungwoo was far from shy. But he slapped a hand over his mouth, remembering they were in a residential neighborhood filled with sleeping babies, probably. 

From buried underneath his sweatshirt collar Jungwoo fished out a simple gold chain, on the end of which dangled the Celadon pendant that started it all for them. He undid the clasp and dropped it into Lucas’ hand. 

“This little thing is our own private paradox,” Jungwoo said. “It should have been in that gallery, but it never was, because we’re a closed loop. The first time we met you gave this to me. It will take you to where you need to go.” 

“To close the loop,” Lucas said. Jungwoo nodded.

“The timelines meet somewhere, but there’s someone you need to meet, first.” 

“More like there’s someone _you_ need to meet, first.” 

“You could say that.” 

Lucas paused. The thought of leaving Jungwoo there was agozning. Especially know when he knew that _he_ was the reason Jungwoo was on the run from the BTA. 

“You’ll be ok, yeah?” He just needed the reassurance. He just needed to hear Jungwoo say it himself.

“You _know_ I’ll be ok, don’t you?” Lucas knew that Jungwoo would be lonely and tired, that he wouldn’t settle anywhere for long. But he also knew there was nothing to be done to change any of it, and then, he also didn’t want to change anything. 

Lucas considered the necklace. Celadon. It was a beautiful art, of careful craftsmanship and love. Invented in China but truly refined by the Koreans. Jewelry itself was rare; Celadon usually existed as larger pieces of pottery. But the necklace was a beautiful piece of work with an even, gray-green tone that signaled Celadon of only the highest quality. Lucas closed his eyes and clenched it in his hand. Jungwoo was right when he said it would lead him to where he needed to go—through it he could feel the past and future versions of them passing each other, until he could see the one place he’d yet to go. 

He opened his eyes. Jungwoo was smiling at him. 

“I’m so sick of leaving you,” Lucas admitted. “When this is over I promise I never will, ok?”

“Ok,” Jungwoo said. He scooted backwards, making sure they weren’t touching, so Lucas was able to jump freely. This time, he didn’t feel like he was throwing himself into the void. He knew where he was going and had everything he needed to lead him there. 

-

**Seoul, South Korea. 2000-something.**

Lucas landed in the same spot he left, but the surface was hot from the afternoon sun beating down on it. But the structure was new with barely any scuffs on it—it had probably just been installed. Lucas made the decision to get out of the park quickly. It was stranger to see an adult man at a playground in the middle of the day than at night. He slid down the slide, and it was at the bottom he noticed the figure sitting on the swingset, staring at him. 

Even as a skinny, wide-eyed teenager it was impossible for Lucas not to recognize him. Jungwoo, for the first time. 

Lucas stood up and waved awkwardly. It elicited not even the slightest of reactions from Jungwoo, who just continued to stare like he was intent on burning a hole straight through Lucas’ chest. 

“Hi,” Lucas said. He grinned goofily. 

“You did the—thing,” Jungwoo said dumbly. He did a hand movement that mimicked a _pop_. Lucas assumed this was his way of trying to explain a jump. “I saw you.” 

“Yes, you did,” Lucas agreed. Jungwoo looked at him like he’d suddenly grown three heads. 

“I, I,” Jungwoo stammered. Lucas decided to take pity on him. The jump had taken nearly the last of his energy from him, so he kind of stammered towards Jungwoo, whose expression turned from general blank confusion to concern. “Are you ok? Do you need, like, some ice?” 

Lucas waved him off. “I’m good, I’m good. It’s just been uh.... A long day. Yeah.” Jungwoo didn’t look convinced. He was adorable as a teenager with plush round cheeks and the same soft features. Lucas wanted to pinch him. 

“You’re weird,” Jungwoo said. He also made no effort to leave. 

“You can, too, right?” Lucas mimicked the strange hand motion Jungwoo had made earlier. _Pop_. 

“How do you know that?” Jungwoo demanded. Red flushed the apples of his cheeks. “Are you,” Jungwoo dropped his voice low, although they were the only ones within at least thirty feet. “From the future?” 

“Sure am,” Lucas said. Jungwoo’s eyes grew comically wide. “But it’s a secret, ok?” 

“Who am I going to tell?” Jungwoo mumbled to himself. 

“It’s the principle of it all,” Lucas said. He extended his hand to Jungwoo. “I’m out of commission for a while, so come on. Take me someplace you love.” 

“I’ve never... done more than me,” Jungwoo said apprehensively. Nothing about his body language said confidence.

“I believe in you,” Lucas said. “Fighting!” 

Jungwoo giggled, then snapped his mouth shut, looking angry at himself that he’d giggled. “Who even _are_ you?” he said, but grabbed onto Lucas hand anyways. Jungwoo squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. Lucas thought he might pass out from lack of oxygen. But Jungwoo managed to make it happen. 

The landing was on the sketchier side, but Lucas needed to impress Jungwoo, so instead of falling completely he willed his body to just stumble a bit. Jungwoo said some hasty apologies in between nervous stammers. The place where Jungwoo had taken them was made of subdued grey-tones and soundtracked by the soothing sound of moving water. It was a dock out on a salt marsh, where reeds and seagrass sprouted up around them like the soft hairs of the earth. 

Lucas plopped down on the edge of the dock and stripped off his shoes. He could definitely say that loafers were not goods shoes for running from the law in. The water stung his tired and blistering feet at first, but as he became accustomed to the burn it became as relaxing as any foot massage he’d gotten.

Jungwoo joined him. 

“Is this in Korea?” Lucas asked. It was impossible to tell from the landscape. 

“Japan,” Jungwoo answered. “You know me from the future, right? I guess I want to know... what am I like?” 

“You’re perfect,” Lucas answered automatically, honestly. A blush spread quickly over Jungwoo’s entire face and he sputtered in embarrassment. “You’re so cute when you’re shy, unstoppable when you’re confident. You pretty much had me wrapped around your finger since day one.” 

“That’s...” Jungwoo said. Maybe Lucas shouldn’t have sprung all that on him. “Flattering, I guess. Do you always come on this strong?” 

Lucas laughed and rubbed his head. “Yeah? It comes with the package.” 

“Will you tell me your name?” Jungwoo asked. “You never did.”

“I want to meet you properly,” Lucas said. He stuck out his hand for Jungwoo to take, for the thousandth time that day, but this time it was for a firm handshake.

“Jungwoo.” 

“Yukhei.” 

“Yukhei, huh,” Jungwoo said, testing the Chinese sounds on his lips. He wanted Jungwoo to know his name, every name. But it hit Lucas harder than he had expected, like the slow cutting of a dull knife. The last time he’d been called Yukhei had also been his mother’s last words. He decided that vortex was too deep to fall into. 

“But I go by Lucas.” 

Jungwoo’s eyes widened suddenly. “Oh holy shi—crap.” He scrambled to his feet. “Stay right there!” He yelled to Lucas before snapping his fingers in a quick jump before Lucas could even think of something to say. About a minute later he was back, this time noticeably more harried and holding a thick, sealed envelope. 

“I’m supposed to give this to you.” Jungwoo handed said envelope to Lucas. On the front, in what Lucas recognized as his own near-illegible scrawl, were the coordinates from a jump. It was listed right down to the second. He thought he already knew what was in the envelope but he opened it anyways. Inside was every photo he’d taken of Jungwoo, from his first meeting in Seoul to their date in Vegas—the same ones Lucas had tucked away in his backpack. There was even one of teenage Jungwoo, right on the very dock they sat on. 

The teenager in question was trying very hard not to snoop, but it was obvious he was interested. Lucas saw no harm in showing them the photos. 

“Wow,” Jungwoo said softly. “I look great as a blond.” 

“Half of these are in black and white!” Lucas said. Jungwoo pushed his shoulder playfully. “Where’d you get these?” 

“The whole thing just appeared in my room one day,” Jungwoo said. “What is it.” 

“A breadcrumb. An explicit one,” Lucas answered. He continued to explain at Jungwoo’s questioning look. “A breadcrumb is a trail, right? Everytime we jump, we leave something behind. A feeling, an impression, that allows us to be tracked for short time. It’s actually how I got into trouble before getting here.” 

“You do look pretty beat up,” Jungwoo chirped. He laughed at the Lucas’ fake-outraged expression. 

“I’m ignoring that. But usually breadcrumbs aren’t physical objects. But when you really want to get the message across,” Lucas waved the envelope. “Obvious is best.” 

“Especially for thick headed guys like you.”

“Hey!” Lucas pulled Jungwoo into a playful headlock and thoroughly mused his hair. They fell back into an easy silence. Lucas laid down on the dock and stretched his aching limbs out. Jungwoo joined them so that they were side by side. It reminded Lucas of watching the clouds in Ireland. Why wouldn’t it have? After all, it was the same sky. Time may change everything, but the basic facts of the universe remained the same everywhere you went. 

“I love you, you know? Whenever, wherever. That’s just something I think you should know,” Lucas said. He felt Jungwoo’s fingers nudge towards him. Neither of them moved in any other way—they just lay there with one hand in the other. 

“Thank you, Lucas,” Jungwoo said. “This has meant a lot. I needed it.” 

“I know,” Lucas said, because he did. He sat up. “Hey, I have something for you, too. Hold out your hands, eyes closed.” 

From his pocket Lucas fished out the Celadon necklace. This would be the closing of the loop, the completion of the chain of events that had led up to every interaction Lucas’ had with Jungwoo so far. He was ready. He dropped the necklace into Jungwoo’s waiting hands. They were cupped, like Jungwoo was waiting to receive Lucas’ whole heart. 

“Oh,” Jungwoo breathed. “It’s so beautiful, Lucas.” 

“It’s our private paradox,” Lucas smiled. “It will always lead you back to me, one way or another. Promise.” 

From the look in Jungwoo’s eye, he completely believed that to be true. 

“You’re leaving now?” Jungwoo asked, disappointment making the words thick in his throat. 

“Sorry, ‘Woo. I have someone I have to meet.” Jungwoo nodded. 

“I understand. I’m sure I’ve waited for long enough.” 

Lucas held the envelope of photographs in his left hand and prepared his right for the jump. He thought he had one more in him. Jungwoo was right. He’d been kept waiting long enough. 

He jumped. 

-

**Hong Kong, 2025**

There’s a place in Hong Kong where the you can go and see the whole of the city stretching below you. In a memory worn by time like a favorite toy, it was the same place a family of three went on picnics. 

Families still go there now, different faces coming and going, passing through their own timelines and creating their own memories. Most visits will be wiped away by time, not counting as extraordinary enough to earn a permanent place in the mind. It’s something that’s often missed—the beauty in the moments that happen between ticks on a clock. 

There are some that know that better than most. These are the people who have struck a bargain with time. They can’t defeat it, because time comes for everyone eventually, but until then they can move in and out of its tides. 

Two of these people favor that place in Hong Kong. They can be seen in the evenings holding hands as the sun sets. One of them wears a pretty silver watch, which if you were to turn it over you’d discover an inscription saying _time changes everything_. If you were to go back in time, if it were possible to do such a thing, to the day this watch was made, you’d discover something not even the wearer of the watch knew. This watch was originally made as a matching pair with inscriptions that completed each other. 

Time changes everything. 

Except for love. 

  


_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This fic was originally written for enrara 2019. 
> 
> The time travel mechanics in this fic were largely inspired by 1) the movie Jumper with Hayden Christensen, which has a 6.1 on IMBD and 2) This Haikyu!! fic [Like Perennials.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259298)  
> You can find my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/themunchking1)  
> and [CC](https://curiouscat.me/themunchking) here. Come chat about timelines and art with me! :)


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